MI owner talks about Hardik Pandya’s early days with the team
Through the years, Hardik Pandya has been one of the best cricketers in India. He is an accomplished leader across different teams, with stints as the vice-captain in the 2024 T20 World Cup that India won. However, Pandya is known for his domestic cricket efforts with the Mumbai Indians.
He is the club captain and has remained one of the most influential people within the organisation. Since Pandya is a big deal in the MI org, people might not realise that he had humble beginnings with the Indians when he joined the franchise.
Pandya’s humble beginnings
In Pandya’s early years, he was part of a humble family that wanted to maximise their children’s passion for cricket. Hardik and his brother Krunal rose through the ranks of junior cricket. They worked their way up to becoming the Indian national cricket team and the Indian Premier League.
Hardik started his domestic cricket career with Baroda, but he got his big break with IPL side Mumbai Indians. The team has five championships to their name and Pandya has been part of four runs. Despite being a top star, Hardik was not a superstar with a big ego as told by Mumbai Indians owner Nita Ambani.
‘I was talking to them, and they said that for three years, they’ve eaten nothing but Maggi noodles because they’ve had no money. But in them, I saw the spirit, the passion and the hunger that they wanted to make it big’, Ambani stated.
MI’s fantastic scouting led them to the Pandya brothers
As the Indians have become a legendary team in the IPL, their scouting deserves some love. Since the IPL has a set budget for every team, they must find ways to get players on cheaper deals, but they could eventually become key players.
That is what happened with Hardik Pandya, who was scouted and invited to the Mumbai Indians camp in 2015. His brother, Krunal would join him on the team a year later and would become a focal point of the Indians’ system alongside his brother.
Ambani credits the scouting for how they found humble stars like the Pandya brothers. She said, ‘When scouting for talent, I used to go to every Ranji Trophy match with my scouts. One day, our scouts took two young, lanky, and thing boys to the camp’.
While Hardik left the team for a year to play for the Gujarat Titans, he loved the Mumbai Indians to return and captain the side. He replaced the legendary Rohit Sharma in the captaincy role, which goes to show that Pandya has earned his way to becoming a well-known leader in the Indian Premier League.
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