Indian maestro Hardik Pandya has missed the entire Australian tour as well as the Asia Cup Final due to a quadriceps injury that has kept him out of cricket action for over a month now.
However, as per the latest revelations, his return ahead of the South Africa tour has also been sabotaged.
India is currently hosting the WTC defending champions for a two-match series in the longest format of the game. This will be followed by an ODI and T20I series between the two teams.
This will be the first time the two finalists of the T20 World Cup 2024 will clash since the famous victory in the Caribbean. Hardik Pandya was the match-winner for India in the final as he dismissed the dangerous-looking Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller as India defended just 30 runs off 30 balls.
Hardik Pandya-India’s star all-rounder unlikely for South Africa series
Experienced and one of the most veteran stars in India’s T20I team, Hardik Pandya has lately been suffering from injury setbacks ahead of some of the most crucial games.
This was the very reason cited by the Indian head coach and the Indian selectors for not picking him as the skipper following Rohit Sharma’s retirement.
India’s T20 World Cup hero missed the Asia Cup 2025 final as he suffered from a quadriceps injury during India’s final group-stage clash against Sri Lanka.
He has missed the Australia tour and was rehabilitating at the BCCI Centre of Excellence and was expected to make a return ahead of the 30th of November.
However, it seems that the all-rounder might not be back ahead of the series and is likely to miss it, as claimed by some reports from News24 editor Vaibhav Bhola.
Hardik Pandya shares post with rumoured girlfriend amid injury woes
Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya made his relationship with his model girlfriend, Maheika Sharma, public after the Asia Cup and, since then, has been sharing photos of their cherished moments and life on social media.
Pandya has been more about his girlfriend and his personal life than his professional life as a cricketer since the end of the IPL. On Tuesday evening, he shared some photos marking the two in a religious ceremony, which indicates that those might be their pictures from the Diwali night.
In one clip, Hardik stands alongside Mahieka dressed in traditional outfits, and the cricketer kisses her on her cheek. The very next clip shows both of them performing religious rituals. One of the photos that caught everyone’s attention was Hardik lifting her in his arms as she clicked a mirror selfie.
Will Nitish Kumar Reddy again be roped in as Hardik’s replacement?
India called in Nitish Kumar Reddy as Hardik Pandya’s replacement when they advanced to the tour for Australia. The Australia tour marked three ODIs and five T20I matches, while Reddy featured in just two of them, being ruled out by injury from the rest of the games.
However, now he is deemed fit and has also been recalled into the Test squad, which he joined at Kolkata on Monday. With the South Africa series to be played under Indian conditions, Ravindra Jadeja, the veteran, might also be brought back into the ODI side as Hardik Pandya’s replacement in case he misses out.
Otherwise, Nitish Kumar Reddy remains an obvious choice for the T20I series, since Jadeja has retired from the format and all other all-rounders are already part of Gambhir’s T20I squad.