'Took Injections, Told Team I Will be Back in Five Days': Hardik Pandya Recalls How Ankle Injury Ended World Cup Dream

India’s 2023 ODI World Cup campaign received a major jolt midway through the tournament after losing key allrounder Hardik Pandya to a freak ankle injury.

Pandya ended up twisting his knee while trying to stop the ball with his foot on follow through during a league match against Bangladesh in Pune. He had to walk off the field and didn’t play any further role in the match.

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Eventually, Pandya was ruled out of the entire showpiece event with Mohammed Shami taking his place in India’s playing XI.

As it turned out, the ankle injury forced Pandya out of action for over four months before he made his on-field return with the DY Patil T20 tournament in Mumbai late in February.

Pandya has now opened up on the injury, revealing he took injections on his ankle after being told it will take 25 days to heal in order to make himself available for the world cup.

“I had prepared for the World Cup for more than a year,” Pandya told Star Sports. “It was a freak injury during the match. The injury was said to be for 25 days, and that would mean I would miss the rest of the World Cup.”

“But I pushed. I told the management that I would return after five days. I got injections done on my ankle in three places. I had to remove blood from my ankle because of the swelling. I wanted to give everything,” he added.

Pandya was intent on playing the world cup despite not being able to walk and his efforts only aggravated the injury.

“At one point I knew that if I kept pushing, I might be injured for a long time, but for me it was never the answer. Even if there was a one percent chance I could be with the team, I would do it. While pushing for that, I had a re-occurrence which eventually became a three-month injury. I was aiming to run when I could not walk after pushing for 10 days but I missed out,” he said.

India would make an unbeaten run to the world cup final before losing to Australia.

Pandya will be representing Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024 after re-joining the five-time IPL winners from Gujarat Titans in an all-cash trade last year.