Team India captain Hardik Pandya credited the support staff for the 2-1 series win over New Zealand at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. India produced a dominant show with both bat and ball to crush New Zealand by 168 runs in the third and final T20I on Wednesday. Pandya was named Player of the Series for his all-round show in the three matches which also included his tactical attributes as a skipper.
The 29-year-old produced a sensational show with the new ball in the series decider and claimed two early wickets in the powerplay to strengthen India’s position while defending a 235-run target. He claimed two more wickets in his second spell to complete his four-fer.
India vs New Zealand 3rd T20I Highlights
The Indian skipper dedicated his Player of the Series award to the coaching staff who worked hard behind the scenes to help the players.
“I don’t mind winning (man of the series award), but there were so performances here that were exceptional. This Man of the Series and trophy goes out to the whole support staff, I’m happy for all of them,” Hardik said in the post-match presentation.
Talking about his captaincy approach, Hardik refuted that he did anything out of the box against New Zealand and suggested that he looks to back his guts and instincts as captain.
“Not to be honest (On doing things out of the box), I always play the game like this. I try to read what is required, not have preconceived ideas. In my captaincy, I look to keep it simple and back my gut. I have a simple rule – if I go down, I will go down on my terms,” Hardik said.
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He further talked about playing at the iconic Narendra Modi Stadium and said that he wanted to take the series decider against New Zealand as a normal game.
“We’ve spoken about taking challenges. When we played the IPL final, we felt the second innings was more spicy but on this surface today I wanted to make it a normal game because it was a decider. Hence, we batted first. Hopefully, we can continue performing like this,” he added.
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