Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan is impressed with Hardik Pandya’s captaincy approach. Pandya had led Gujarat Titans to glory in his maiden season as an IPL captain in 2022. The right-hander had scored 487 runs in 16 matches for the new franchise to lead from the front. Furthermore, he led India to series wins against Ireland and New Zealand in the absence of full-time captain Rohit Sharma.

Pandya will once again lead India in the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka. The all-rounder has also replaced KL Rahul as India’s vice-captain for ODI and T20I formats.

However, Pathan feels if India is looking at Hardik Pandya as a full-time leader, then they need to pay special attention to his fitness.

Irfan Pathan said while talking to Star Sports, “The captaincy Hardik has done, whether it was for the Gujarat Titans in the IPL or at the start for India, I felt the communication was extremely good. He was seen as very agile.”

“When there was talk about his captaincy, I was extremely impressed with his approach, but along with that, India will have to keep in mind that if you are making him the long-term captain, they will have to concentrate a lot on his fitness, whether you talk about him or the team management. It will be very crucial going ahead,” said Pathan.

On the other hand, former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara added Hardik Pandya has all the qualities to lead from the front.

“There is no doubt that his leadership is excellent and we all saw that in the IPL. Now he has to meet that with on-field captaincy at the national level. He has all qualities to be a leader although you don’t necessarily need to be a captain to be a leader,” Sangakkara told the news agency PTI.

Hardik Pandya has done a fine job for India as a leader whenever he has gotten the opportunity to captain the team. Pandya will once again look to deliver as a skipper against Sri Lanka in the three-match T20I series.

The first T20I will be played in Mumbai on Tuesday.