Hardik Pandya has finally started playing competitive cricket.
The swasbuckling allrounder and undoubtebly best of what India has in store, suffered a tear in his right ankle on 19 October 2023 playing against Bangladesh in World Cup 2023.
After keeping his fans updated through his instagram on the rehab and road to recovery, Pandya has chosen the prestigious DY Patil Cup 2024 as his return to competitive cricket.
Named after DY Patil, who is former politician and was the leader of Congress from Maharashtra state who also served as governer of Bihar, Tripura and and WestBengal, DY Patil Cup has earned quite a good name among IPL talent scouts to search for young talent for IPL.
Praveen Tamble, also was spotted playing in one of the matches of DY Patil Cup in 2013.
The current 18th edition of DY Patil cup will take place in Navi Mumbai from 26 February to 9 March.
The lean 20-20 tournament has 4 teams each in 4 groups and each team plays 3 matches. Top 2 teams from each group qualifies for quarter final, followed by semifinal and final.
Group A: Reliance, BPCL, Central Railway, Jain irrigation
Group B: RBI, DY Patil blue, Route Mobile, Tata SC
Group C: Canara Bank, DY Patil Red, Bank of Baroda, Income Tax
Group D: CAG, Indian Oil, Nirlon SC, Mumbai Customs
Hardik Pandya is leading the Reliance.
Along with Hardik Pandya, almost every Mumbai Indians player can be seen playing the DY Patil cup as a preparation to the IPL 2024 starting on 19 March.
Ishan Kishan is playing from RBI and Nehal Wadhera, last season hero Uttarakhand player Aakash Madhwal, the veteran Piyush Chawla along with his backup Shreyas Gopal and Sandeep Sharma are some of the names who will be using the opportunity to sharpen their skills for IPL 2024.
Previously, Mumbai Indians chinaman, Raghav Goyal u-23 player from Haryana also impressed the talent scouts of Mumbai Indians with his performances in DY Patil Cup 2023. He also got to play 1 match for his team to bowl his low bounce chinaman.
Well Indian fans will certainly be relieved to see 2 of their main player, Hardik Pandya who will also be leading Mumbai Indians and Ishan Kishan back in action.
The presence of the tournaments like DY Patil Cup just before IPL, which gives chance to IPL players to sharpen their skills along with a opportunity to young ones to showcase their skills in front of the IPL franchises eases the team selection headache for the coach and captain to some extent, as they can see what’s the player form coming into IPL and its popularity will only increase with time.
May be we will see a mini auction for DY Patil Cup just like TNPL in coming editions. Quite possible.
