“Before the 2015 IPL no one even knew who Hardik Pandya was.” The 22-year all-rounder from Baroda says, as he talks about the six weeks that “Changed my life”. In a Mumbai Indians team filled with an array of cricket stars this young rookie cricketer made his own mark. His whirlwind game-changing cameos with the bat and crucial strikes with the ball made him the tournament’s poster boy. His assured confidence in his abilities meant he did not let the enormity of the occasion or the presence of great cricketers around overawe him – a quality that endeared him to MI’s head coach, Ricky Ponting. Those IPL performances and his consistent show on the domestic front have now manifested into something very special. Pandya has received his first call into the Indian team, for the three T20Is in Australia, in January, 2016. Standing at the threshold of his international career, Pandya relived the journey that has got him here, in this chat with BCCI.TV.

Talk about your maiden India call-up. It felt amazing. It was funny because I was expecting the call-up but still it came as a surprise. When I say I was expecting it, I mean you get the vibe that it is going to happen soon. Selectors come up to you and say you’re doing well, and you know they have their eyes on you. I haven’t done too well in the Vijay Hazare Trophy this year, but I knew I was in the selectors’ radar. Sandeep Patil (Chairman of national selection committee) sir came to watch a Ranji Trophy game (Baroda vs Railways) of ours in which I was the Man of the Match. They saw that I was batting and bowling well, even though I haven’t had too many high numbers in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. But even though you are anticipating it, when the moment actually comes, the feeling is something else.

Is the World Twenty20 on your mind? Of course, it is. My goal was to make it to the Indian team. Now that I have, I can’t wait to make my international debut. I am confident of playing my first game for India in the Australia series and doing well. If I manage that, I will stand a very good chance of getting selected for the World Twenty20 next year. That is my next goal.

As a pace bowling all-rounder and a hard-hitting batsman Australia seems to be the perfect venue to make your international debut, doesn’t it? It really is. The pitches there suit my style of cricket. I would enjoy bowling on the hard, quick pitches and the good length that I bowl will cause problems for batsmen. I will also enjoy batting there because the ball comes on nicely and I am good at facing short balls too. Is it fair to say that IPL 2015 was the breakthrough moment of your cricket career? Definitely. Before the IPL no one knew who Hardik Pandya was. I said after the final that IPL will change my life, and it has. Why I give a lot of credit to IPL is because its concept is simply amazing for young Indian players. It is not every day that you meet Sachin Tendulkar or Virender Sehwag. If it wasn’t for the IPL, I would never have met Ricky Ponting, let alone have this wonderful relationship with him. It teaches you so much about your game and about yourself. As a person I do not take too much pressure, but still, playing in tight games in the IPL, you watch how some of the established greats handle pressure and react to it, and you learn from that. You spoke about Ricky Ponting and the bond you have formed with him. Will you seek his help now that you are going to tour his country?

I am regularly in touch with Ricky and now that I am going to Australia, I will call him up and ask him how I should prepare for those conditions and pitches. A few people are not sure if he will help me out in this regard, but I know he won’t say no to me. I know he will be there to help me in whichever way he can. Team India has been looking for a genuine pace bowling all-rounder for years now. This is your perfect chance to make that slot yours. I am definitely eyeing the all-rounder’s position in the team. With my decent pace and batting abilities, I can be the perfect No. 7 that India are looking for. That is the reason why I insisted on becoming an all-rounder, rather than a batsman who can bowl a bit.

You did not start out as an all-rounder. When was it that you decided to tread this path? When I started playing cricket I was a pure batsman who would bowl very part time leg-spin. But I used to bowl medium pace in the nets sometimes since we did not have enough net bowlers to help our batsmen out. I bowled only 120-125 kph at that time, but that pace coming from a part-timer impressed everyone. Our Baroda coach, Sanath Kumar, saw me bowl in the nets one day and convinced me to focus equally on my bowling. He saw a potential all-rounder in me. I started to work hard on my bowling and focused on getting stronger physically so that my body can take the rigours of pace bowling and batting. Was it difficult initially for your body to take the load of fast bowling? It was difficult at the beginning and I suffered a back injury very shortly after I started bowling regularly. I had to take a break from bowling twice for a year each. So, in my three-year long first-class career I have only bowled regularly for one year. But as I began to work out and train properly, I got stronger and now I am very confident about my bowling.

Irfan Pathan was a big influence in my development as an all-rounder. He encouraged me to focus equally on batting and bowling and I followed his lead in the way he trained worked out. If he did core exercises in the gym, I would do the same.