India vs South Africa: Hardik Pandya unleashes his beast mode with the bat in Ahmedabad

None of those in the stadium — the spectators, the teammates or the audience — would forget the first ball he faced. He just took a couple of firm steps, as if greeting a long-lost friend, and smoked Corbin Bosch over long off. The shot was so flat and fast that a cameraman on the edge of the ropes had little time to react. It cannoned onto his body. The stroke set the tone of the innings. It swung the game’s momentum. South Africa were staging a mini comeback after nailing both Sanju Samson and Suryakumar Yadav in the space of adding 18 runs. But that shot injected a sense of despair among the South Africans. That it was not their night; that it was going to be Pandya’s.

𝘿𝙊 𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝙈𝙄𝙎𝙎!

6⃣3⃣ Runs
2⃣5⃣ Balls
5⃣ Fours
5⃣ Sixes

That Was Some Insane Hitting 💪🔥

Relive Hardik Pandya’s blitz 🎥 🔽 #TeamIndia | #INDvSA | @hardikpandya7 | @IDFCFIRSTBankhttps://t.co/SmF9ePm8wb

— BCCI (@BCCI) December 19, 2025

So it turned out. For the next eight-odd overs, they witnessed a carnage that left them without reactions or responses, almost numb. The damage he inflicted in the next six balls read: 1, 4, 4, 6, 6, 4. In seven balls, he had bludgeoned to 31. Left-arm spinner George Linde felt the brunt the most. Until the fateful over he leaked 27 runs, he was the visitors’ most lethal bowler, drifting the ball into the right-handed batsman and breaking it away. He deceived Sanju in flight and castled him, after making him dance to his tunes like a puppet.

But Hardik just waited for him on the back foot and flexed his tremendous power to fetch the ball over the fence. The first of his two sixes off Linde was stunning in both imagination and execution. He backed away a trifle to manufacture room; Linde smartly followed him, but Hardik, his weight leaning on the back-foot, still got underneath the ball and thundered it over cover boundary. Linde, smarting with revenge, slipped in a brisk, short-of-good length, angled-in ball. Pandya just nodded his head and swung his cross-batted blade. The ball settled on the roof of the stadium. The shot was in his range, but only a few batsmen would dare imagine it. Fewer still would hit the ball that long.

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐬 💥

Hardik Pandya in the house 😎

Updates ▶️ https://t.co/kw4LKLNSl3#TeamIndia | #INDvSA | @hardikpandya7 | @IDFCFIRSTBank pic.twitter.com/UB2L43ogGz

— BCCI (@BCCI) December 19, 2025

The two strokes revealed the essence of his hitting methodology. He is wiry than muscled, the heavily-inked forearms are slender; he has robust rather than enormous shoulders. But gets immense power with a fluid transfer of weight, allied with a super-strong bottom hand. He derives considerable power from his body. The lower half is stable and sturdy to support the contortions of his upper body. His back arches like a trebuchet in the power he imparts on his strokes. But he is always still and balanced. He targets the old-fashioned, straight-lined routes. He needn’t resort to the theatrics of paddle or reverse sweeps (though he is capable of pyrotechnics too).

But often it’s the mood that dictates him. India should be buoyant that he has hit the right mood at the right time, less than 50 days before the World Cup. Pandya, in devastating batting form, not only emboldens India’s batting but also brings a fear factor. It enables the top-order to bat freely, it buys India’s under-firing captain Suryakumar Yadav some time to rediscover his form, it lends India the flexibility to draft in one more specialist bowler if the need arises, and it makes Pandya the most important player of the team, and one that shines, as South Africa would readily testify, on the biggest stage too.