Hardik Pandya spotted smoking at Sakshi Dhoni's birthday party?

A video posted by Sakshi Dhoni, former Team India captain MS Dhoni's wife, has gone viral on social media platform Instagram.

In the video, where Sakshi is seen cutting her birthday cake, Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya is spotted in the background, behind MS Dhoni, smoking what looks like a cigarette or a vape.

Over the years, there have been several instances where cricketers have been found smoking. In fact, many years ago, there was a picture of Virat Kohli that had gone viral, which saw him with a cigarette in his hand, standing next to Chris Gayle. However, Kohli has transformed as a player over the years, with fitness being his first priority.

Former New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum had revealed that he used to smoke in the toilet in the dressing room whenever the match would go down to the wire. He disclosed that he did so during the Blackcaps' win over South Africa in the semifinal of the 2015 World Cup.

Pandya recently suffered an injury during the Asia Cup which ruled him out for the rest of the tournament. He was subsequently ruled out of the Windies tour to India, which saw them play 2 Tests, 5 ODIs, and 3 T20Is.

He has not been included in the squad for the T20I and Test series against Australia as well, which is scheduled to begin on November 21 in Brisbane.

MS Dhoni, too, was not included in the T20I squad to take on Australia.

Since the entire squad has travelled to Australia, Pandya was one of the few cricketers spotted at the birthday party. Apart from Pandya, Robin Uthappa too was spotted at Sakshi's birthday party.

Pandya will be hoping to get back into the squad for the ODI series against Australia, which is scheduled to take place in January 2019.