The Pandya Brothers will reunite once again as all-rounder Hardik Pandya will be playing for Baroda under his brother Krunal’s captaincy in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
The inclusion of this duo will significantly boost the Baroda squad in the SMAT 2024 edition.
Baroda has been placed in Group B along with Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Saurashtra, Karnataka and Sikkim.
“Usually, the association names 18-member squads, but this time around, only 17 members were named initially and now, Hardik has also been added to the squad,” said a source.
Baroda has made a strong start in the domestic season, topping the group in the first phase of the Ranji Trophy season with 27 points.
Krunal and Hardik Pandya has played IPL matches together for Mumbai Indians. While Hardik played for MI in seven seasons, he was part of team’s title winning seasons in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020.
Hardik Pandya was named as the MI captain ahead of the IPL 2024 season where the side suffered a disappointing campaing finishing in the bottom of the points table. Despite the poor campaign Mumbai Indians has retained Hardik Pandya as the captain.
Meanwhile Krunal has made appearance for the same franchise in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 and hence featured in two IPL seasons together.
Previously, Hardik played in SMAT in 2016 and his national duties has kept him away from the domestic side. However, the BCCI has recently made it compulsory for the central contracted players to participate in domestic tournaments when they are not playing the country and free of injuries.
Baroda will begin their SMAT campaign against Gujarat on November 23 at Holkar Stadium.
