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Patience key for enriching Pandya's growth as Test all-rounder

Hardik Pandya will be learning about long form cricket while playing Test cricket © AFP

I am not surprised at all that Virat Kohli mentioned Ben Stokes in his post-match presser when he was talking of the kind of role Hardik Pandya could play for India. The search for a seam-bowling all-rounder is a continuous one in world cricket and I won't be surprised if there is a correlation between team performance and the presence of such a player.

Jacques Kallis and Shaun Pollock did that for South Africa in their strongest years and that is also why Andrew Flintoff is talked about in cricketing circles with greater respect than his numbers would suggest (79 Tests, 3845 runs @31.77 and 226 wickets @32.78). Every country in the world is looking for the Stokes kind of player at the moment and outside of England only South Africa with Vernon Philander and Chris Morris and to a lesser extent the West Indies with Jason Holder have someone answering to that description.

Unless you are possessed of the riches that the West Indies or Australia did in their prime, or you are playing on turning tracks where spinners can bowl long spells, you need five bowlers to win Test matches consistently. If two of them don't bat, you are looking at a very long tail and hence the need to find a batsman in the top six who can play that role. Very few in history have done that and it is why Keith Miller, Garry Sobers and Kallis have the place they do in our game.

That is why Indian cricket is so excited about Pandya but there is a difference between him and the others in that he has emerged from limited-overs cricket into Test cricket. It is a journey nobody has made so far in international cricket. Even Stokes, so made for limited-overs cricket, had played 59 first-class matches before his Test debut. He had 3172 runs @35.64 but more important, had 8 centuries and 14 fifties. The 110 wickets he had added at a healthy average of 28.25 meant that he was a pretty seasoned first-class cricketer before getting into Test cricket.

By comparison, Pandya has only played 17 games and after 27 innings has an average of 27.62 with 5 fifties. 18 of those innings have been played in the top six in the order. His 24 wickets have come at 35.66 each. These are not numbers to belittle anyone but to point out how long the journey ahead is and the fact that he will, in a manner of speaking, be learning about long form cricket while playing Test cricket.

And because he is now such an integral part of the limited-overs team, he may not get time to go back to Baroda and bat in the top order in different situations. Ideally he should have spent time batting at number 5, even at number 4 but that may no longer be possible and that is why he needs to be handled carefully in these first few Test matches.

Eventually, all all-rounders acquire a stronger arm and even the legendary Sobers averaged 57 with the bat versus 35 with the ball. It will be interesting to see how Pandya is perceived within the think tank and by the selectors. I believe that at this stage, he is more a batting all-rounder though for the moment, India are just playing him where they can. In these conditions and against the opposition coming up, India are a fairly well-settled unit with ten players and so they can carry Pandya for a while as he learns.

We need to be patient in our assessment of him. His major examination isn't till early next year in South Africa. In fourteen months starting there, India will have played England, Australia and New Zealand (though why these tours are always bunched together, I do not understand). His kind of cricketer will be very handy there and we will get an idea of whether Pandya can, indeed, be that player.

Because of the way he plays his cricket, and the attention he attracts, Pandya will have to learn to live with being assessed all the time. It comes with the territory. And that is why I will be very keen to see how he is handled. Of his promise there is little doubt, it is in the translation of that promise where the excitement lies.