"It's going to be one hell of a ride" - Captain Hardik Pandya delivered as he said

With the mega auction for this year's IPL series over, there are no questions as to whether Gujarat will be the best team to win the trophy. The team was not included in the list of teams that each fan selected, claiming that these four teams would feature at the end of the league series.  But Gujarat won the IPL trophy yesterday. There is a saying that hard work always pays off.  That is exactly what the Gujarat team is telling us in this 2022 Tata IPL series.

Hardik Pandya from Mumbai, Saha and Rashid Khan from Hyderabad, David Miller and Rahul Tewatia from Rajasthan, Mohammad Shami from Punjab, Gill and Lockie Ferguson from Kolkata, Sai Sudarshan from Chennai. It just seemed like a slightly weaker team.  However within a few days of the start of the series their game was staged to the point where we could say that what we thought was wrong.  All of them are playing together as a team in this IPL series. Can you believe that 8 different players have won the Man of the Match award?  But this is what happened to the Gujarat Titans in the 2022 IPL series.

Gradually recovering from the injury, bowler Hardik Pandya was trying. However he has not played so well in the IPL series or in the Indian team in the last few years. But Hardik Pandya has shown us who he is and what he can do in this IPL series.Hardik Pandya has scored 487 runs in 14 innings so far in this IPL series.He has a batting average of 44.27 and a strike rate of 131.27. He has taken five wickets so far.  His bowling economy is 7.28.

It is no exaggeration to say that the captain led the team very well and handled all the players under him very well. As captain, Hardik won the man-of-the-match award for extraordinary bowling and batting in the final yesterday. As a captain Rohit Sharma successfully led Mumbai Indians (Rohit Sharma's first IPL series as a captain) to victory in the 2013 IPL Series. And also as a captain he won the man of the match award in the 2015 IPL final.Hardik Pandya equaled those two records in the yesterday encounter against Rajasthan royals.

It is safe to say that all the players who played for the Gujarat team played without any tension.Together they were expressing what they thought was the best in each match.The senior players and the young players all together have done their job very well without any discrimination. As said before everyone is pulling the chariot together as a team. That hard work was not in vain in the end.

We have to applaud Gujarat head coach Ashish Nehra this time.As we watch every match, Ashish Nehra is giving advice to the players by standing very vibrant like a young player playing on that team.You know if you took good care of him, we could not have seen him sitting in a chair during every match.Captain Hardik Pandya was sharing a few things a few days ago."I was complimenting him that he helped me to pull-out the best game I have inside me. As well as being naturally accustomed to everyone on the team as players and staff he said he would be clear on what they wanted. At one point when he was the bowling coach in the Bangalore team, many jokes arose about him. Ashish Nehra responded to all of them with his excellent coaching in the ongoing IPL series.

With the exception of Chennai and Mumbai, a new team has won the IPL trophy since 2016.  Only Chennai and Mumbai have alternately won the IPL trophy for the last 5 years.The Gujarat titans played this IPL series as an example of how any team can win the IPL trophy if they play efficiently and hard.  We would be surprised even now to think that a new team has won the IPL trophy with no expectations. But that is exactly what happened.

 It can be any team, it can have any star players. But when it comes to competition everyone on a team has to play better together.  For example, when pulling a chariot, all the people have to work together to pull the chariot. The chariot may fall down if people on one side do not hold the chariot properly. All the players who played for the Gujarat team, played well and delivered their best. And for that commitment and hard work the prize is the 2022 IPL Cup for them. Yes they deserved that.