In Stats: Hardik Pandya’s T20 Career and His Impact in Asia Cup

• Statistician Arun Gopalakrishnan cracks down Hardik Pandya’s T20 career through numbers.
  
• Pandya is the highest wicket-taker for India with six wickets in the Asia Cup so far.
  
• The Baroda lad has performed well in all three departments of the game in the Asia Cup.
  

We are barely into the third month of the calendar year and the Indian team has attained unprecedented success in the T20 format. With eight wins in nine outings in the year 2016, MS Dhoni’s team has equalled the Indian team’s record for most wins in a calendar year and now have a chance of bettering that performance in 2012.

What makes the success of the Indian team sweet to all its fans is the team’s performance as a unit on the field. There will be certain players who will always be seen as pillars of the team – like Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni - in this current Indian team. But there are certain other players, who bring a certain X-factor to the team and stand up and deliver the knockout punch just when it is needed.

One such player in this current Indian team is the Baroda all-rounder Hardik Pandya. Here was a lad unknown to the world until about ten months ago. But a stint with the Mumbai Indians and some match-changing performances later, he became a familiar name in Indian households.

The second-half of the Mumbai Indians’ journey in the IPL 2015 was such that they had to win all their matches to make it to the Playoffs. And it was under such pressure that Pandya turned in a few performances to put the match beyond the reach of MI’s opponents – most notable of them being his whirlwind 31-ball 61 against Kolkata Knight Riders, even as the big-hitting Kieron Pollard watched from the other end.

That kid is fearless and has lots of very good skills. We haven’t seen his bowling much yet but it is particularly good. We saw some of his hitting prowess tonight and even in the game against RCB where he took 16-odd in the last over. He is going to be a very good cricketer going forward and is someone I am excited to continue to work with.

Ricky Ponting to iplt20.com during the 2015 IPL.

Pandya, as he admitted to iplt20.com during the IPL 2015, is a bold cricketer, supremely confident and one who is keen to make a contribution to the team’s success at every given opportunity.

To be very honest, I don’t get nervous a lot. I am a happy and positive person by nature and I just don’t feel tensed that often. It is a characteristic that has boded well for me so far in the season.

Hardik Pandya

He has earned himself a reputation of being someone who can muscle the ball hard and send it into orbit with mighty force. For someone who excelled for Baroda batting at number three in this year’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Pandya doesn’t get too much time to cause damage with the bat in the Indian team. Worry not, that’s when Pandya the bowler emerges; the 22-year old can surprise batsmen with his ability to bowl at speeds in excess of 140kph and has picked up some key wickets during his stint with the Indian team.

In the Asia Cup match on Tuesday, after the new-ball pair of Ashish Nehra and Jasprit Bumrah had pushed the Sri Lankans on the backfoot, India needed someone who could sustain the pressure. Pandya did just that, bowling a spell of 4-0-26-2, which included the big wickets of Tillakaratne Dilshan and Angelo Mathews.

You can’t keep Pandya out of action on the field too; for someone who isn’t guaranteed a hit with the bat and isn’t sure if he will get a bowl, the Baroda all-rounder also contributes with saving runs and taking difficult catches on the field.

The 3rd T20 International against Australia at Sydney is a case in point; chasing 198, it came down to India needing 17 off the final over and two runs off the final ball which Suresh Raina duly dispatched to the boundary. In a match that ran that close, it was Pandya’s superlative in the outfield – in the 15th over when he saved four runs – that was the difference between the two teams in the final analysis.