India all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who has been rested for the Test matches against Sri Lanka, on Monday said he asked for the rest because of niggles.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old said he will use this break to improve his fitness so that he could perform to the best of his abilities during the South Africa tour. The all-rounder was rested for the Sri Lanka series but is looking forward towards a long tour in South Africa.<\/p>\n
India will play three Tests, six One Day Internationals (ODI) and three Twenty20 Internationals against the Proteas. The first Test begins on January 5 in Cape Town.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, I asked for it. My body wasn’t up to it, I was getting niggles because of the amount of cricket that I have played. I want to play cricket when I am totally up for it, when I can give my 100 percent,” said Pandya, as media reports suggest.<\/p>\n
“I am lucky that I have got this break. I will train in the gym during this break and improve my fitness. I won’t lie, I am really excited about South Africa series. I would like to use this break to improve my fitness for the series,” he added.<\/p>\n
Pandya said he will remain positive ahead of the series and will play well.<\/p>\n
“Yes, I am really excited. People are talking about it. It’s a much-hyped series. I like challenges in life, they keep me going. As you said I am the missing link in the team, who knows I might be the difference there. I am sure we are going to play very well,” he said.<\/p>\n
When asked about the biggest turning point of his career, Pandya said: “My life changed when I got a chance to play for MI (Mumbai Indians) and then I never looked back. I had a small failure and that’s why I learned to be even more professional. You need to understand that some things are bad. That’s how you improve in life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who has been rested for the Test matches against Sri Lanka, on Monday said he asked for the rest because of niggles. The 24-year-old said he will use this break to improve his fitness so that he could perform to the best of his abilities during the South Africa tour. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10172,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10170\/revisions\/10172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}