Hardik Pandya ticked most boxes, very impressed with his captaincy: Mohammad Kaif

Throughout the tournament, Pandya was leading Gujarat from the front, taking the charge with the bat at either number three or four, something which he hardly got to do in his previous franchise Mumbai Indians. Pandya was the anchor Gujarat needed with the bat before unleashing his stroke play in the back end of the innings, amassing 487 in 15 innings at an average of 44.27 and strike-rate of 131.26. With the ball too, he was chipping in occasionally, with his spell of 3/17 in the final at home ground in Ahmedabad proving to be match-winning.

Mohammad Kaif was also in the Narendra Modi Stadium on the day of the IPL 2022 final and was impressed with what he saw of Pandya the captain. "I was there at the ground for the finals in Ahmedabad. I saw him captaining there live.

His field placement was outstanding. He is also a good man manager because the way his players performed under pressure told me the story of nice vibes around the team. "He's backing his players; he was standing at mid-off and was talking to his players, especially to the bowlers when they felt the pressure in terms of bowling in death overs.

If you ask me personally, I was very impressed with his captaincy. There are a lot of teams playing the IPL from the very first year (and) have not done what Hardik did: winning the IPL title as a captain in the very first year," said Kaif in a virtual interaction organised by Sony Sports. Does Kaif, who represented India in 125 ODIs and 13 Tests, see Pandya's promotion to India's captaincy as a reward for captaining and proving his leadership credentials as a Gujarat Titans skipper in IPL 2022? He strongly feels the same.