'XYZ Can Say Whatever...': Ravi Shastri Reacts To Sunil Gavaskar's Accolades For Hardik Pandya

Sunil Gavaskar went on to compare Hardik with Ravi Shastri and backed the star all-rounder Hardik Pandya to emulate Shastri's heroics from the 1985 World Championship.

Ravi Shastri said there's nothing he wants to 'add or subtract' to his earlier statement.

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New Delhi: Indian cricket team's star all-rounder Hardik Pandya is currently in the best form of his life. From leading Gujarat Titans to their maiden title win in their first-ever Indian Premier League appearance to making an inspiring comeback into the national team, Pandya has managed to tick all the boxes. His flamboyant display of cricket and top-form will give Indian squad the right balance in T20 World Cup 2022.

Like many other experts, ex-India skipper Sunil Gavaskar had praised Pandya in a recent interaction with Sports Tak. Gavaskar went on to compare Hardik with Ravi Shastri and backed the star all-rounder to emulate Shastri's heroics from the 1985 World Championship in which the fomer India head coach had scored 182 runs in five matches with help of three half-centuries and bagged eight wickets.

"Yes, I think he could possibly do what Ravi Shastri did in 1985 where Ravi was the outstanding performer with both bat and ball in the entire tournament. Some good catches as well. Hardik Pandya is capable of doing that," Gavaskar had said in an interaction with India Today.

Reacting to Gavaskar's comments for Pandya, Shastri said there's nothing he wants to 'add or subtract' to his earlier statement in which he called Gujarat Titans skipper 'no.1 all-rounder in T20 format'.

"I have already tweeted and posted on Instagram that he is the No. 1 all-rounder in this format of the game. What else do you need? I had said it two weeks back. What else is there to add or subtract? XYZ can say whatever they want… everyone is entitled to his opinion. My view is clear, which is what I tweeted a couple of weeks ago," Shastri told Sports Tak.