“Hardik Pandya needs to put on muscle”, Pakistani former captain said regarding Pandya’s reporting to NCA

Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya is one of the key players of the team but recently he is going through a rough patch. He is not able to perform his best and do not even take a break because of which National Cricket Academy has ordered the player to report to the NCA to regain his fitness and muscle growth.

When this information went out, former Pakistani Captaim Salman Butt shared his opinion on his official YouTube channel stating that it will be great for the player to work on his ‘lean structure’ to be able to play in all the three formats of cricket. He said that it will be good for the cricketer to use the time to bulk up.

Salman Butt said, “It is a good decision. Hardik Pandya needs to put on muscle. He needs to train and have good food for him to survive in all three formats. Otherwise, it will become challenging for him, with his lean structure.”

This is not the first time Butt is seen commenting on Hardik Pandya slender body. Earlier in August of this year, he said, “Hardik Pandya’s problem is that he is so slim if there is extra load on his body, he will keep getting unfit.” The Pakistani player believe that Pandya has an impressive bowling action and is a great asset for Indian team but it’s hard for his lean body to handle extra workload.

Hardik Pandya is not able to perform well in recent series. He had an uninspiring performance in the T20 World Xup 2021 in the UAE. In batting, he played 3 innings out of 5 matches and scored a total of 69 runs with the highest score of 35. And bowling, he did not bowl against Pakistan and against New Zealand and Afghanistan, he bowled a total of 4 overs without knocking any wicket. Then in the ‘Men in Blue’ hosted New Zealand VS India three-match T20I series, he was dropped. There have been various question marks regarding his fitness and he also faced various criticisms because of his poor performance after his back injury.