India’s all-rounder Hardik Pandya remained composed and tight-lipped about recent personal and T20I captaincy snub while revealing his fitness mantra Saturday. Notably, Pandya and Natasa Stankovic officially announced their separation after four years of marriage. This news followed closely on the heels of Pandya losing out to Suryakumar Yadav in the race to become the captain of the Indian T20 team for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka. Despite these setbacks, Pandya chose to focus on fitness in his public appearance.
“When our body does not get tired, our mind gets tired. So, so many times in my life, the difference between when I was able to push my limits was always the fact that when my mind gets tired, I would tell my body to just push because you will always have extra effort in your body,” Pandya said. “The difference between, if you do 20 and if I do 20, we are on the same level. But if I push to 25 and if I challenge my mindset, next time I’m going to do 25, next time I’m going to do 30,” he added.
Ironically, his chances of becoming the captain have diminished owing to concerns around fitness, due to which he has not been able to play all three formats of the game and bowl extensively in limited-overs cricket, especially in ODIs. Earlier this month, Pandya celebrated with the T20 World Cup-winning team during an open bus victory parade, soaking in the adoration of lakhs of fans. However, in the weeks since that triumph, Pandya has faced significant personal and professional losses.
India’s T20 World Cup vice-captain Pandya was seen as a potential successor to Rohit Sharma, but the news of his removal from the leadership role almost coincided with his divorce announcement. Despite these events, Pandya maintained his composure during the brand launch with Fancode, focusing on his fitness journey and sharing his experiences. Only a few months ago, Pandya faced criticism from fans for replacing Rohit as Mumbai Indians’ captain. He remained silent amidst the backlash until he turned things around with a stellar performance in India’s World Cup win. Reflecting on his journey, Pandya shared his philosophy of pushing limits.
“The point that it is very, very important to sometimes clean your mind as well, that your body has much more than what you can think and that video (he watched as a 16-year-old) stayed with me for so long that, every time in my life, when my trainer is telling me to do 10 push-ups, I’ve always ended up doing 15,” the 30-year-old shared. “And that has pushed my limits and I think slowly, everyone who wants to start with a fitness journey they should focus on that,” said Pandya, adding that his highest score in the Yo-Yo test has been 21.7, just shy of the upper limit.
“Start pushing your barrier every single day because the human body is such a lovely creation by God that it will mould however you want (it) to, however you want to have it, it’s just that it just needs a little hard work,” Pandya said. Although Pandya may not be new coach Gautam Gambhir’s choice for captaincy, he was once described by chief selector Ajit Agarkar as the “only player in the country to do what he can do.” Pandya shared insights into what drives him.
“I never knew what fitness would do for me, but it’s just that I felt that, for me, I always wanted to be No. 1 in everything which I do, so in a habit of that, I kept training a lot when I was young, I pushed myself a lot, ran a lot so I had a very good strong base,” he said. “Obviously, there was not much knowledge about the body, not much knowledge about how to increase my fitness, but because my base was strong and I did the basics which you are supposed to do while training, it helped me when I came to the higher level.”
“I used to bowl if I’m not wrong 130s; higher 130s, I was able to go 140 plus, 142 by pushing, that’s when I realized by 2017 or not as soon as I started getting more more into my body, more knowledge about it and that’s when I started pushing,” he concluded.
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