Hardik Pandya opens up on 'Koffee With Karan' controversy

The start of 2019 was very tough for Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul as they suffered severe backlash for the kind of comments they passed on the show 'Koffee With Karan'. They were also suspended for a certain amount of time from the Indian team and were clueless about their fate. The all-rounder opened up about the incident and termed it to be an extremely vulnerable situation. He said,

We as cricketers did not know what was going to happen. The ball was not in my court, it was in someone else’s court where they had to take the shot and that’s a very vulnerable place you don’t want to be.

Both the players were called back half-way from the tour of Australia and were fined INR 20 Lakhs each by the BCCI. They were asked to pay INR 20 Lakhs for the development of cricket for the blind. They were also instructed by the Ombudsman D.K. Jain to give INR 1 Lakh to the widows of 10 constables of the paramilitary forces who lost their lives.

A depressing period like this could have shattered the confidence and morale of any cricketer. However, Hardik believed that he always had the ability to come back from tough situations and till date, he remains one of the more important players of the Indian side. The year 2020 started wonderfully for him as he got engaged to Serbian actress Natasa Stankovic.

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Hardik has almost recovered from back surgery and will be a part of the India A team in New Zealand. These games would act as a fitness test for him to finally make his international comeback.

“I don’t know, I am lucky. I always make a good comeback. Every setback has made me stronger. What I have learnt over a period of time is that you keep giving 100% to your work, it generally gives you some magical results,” he said.