New Delhi:
Hardik Pandya, India's star all-rounder in one-day internationals and T20 cricket has been handed his Test cap more than a year-and-a-half since making his T20 international debut for the country. Pandya made the cut in India's playing XI for the first Test of the three-match series that began on Wednesday in Galle. Pandya was handed the Indian cap by skipper Virat Kohli.
Pandya has been India's leading seam all-rounder in T20I and one-day international since making his debuts for India in 2016. He played his first T20I for India in January 2016 against Australia in Adelaide while his first 50-over game was against New Zealand on October 16 last year in Dharamsala.
India is playing first of its three Tests against Sri Lanka at Galle. After the first game, both teams will travel to Colombo for the second Test that begins on August 7 and the final Test of the series will be played in Dambulla from August 12 before both teams play the one-day international series. So far, Pandya has played 17 First-Class matches and taken 24 wickets at an average of 35.66. He has best bowling for 5 for 61 in an innings.
In his ODI and T20I career, Pandya has taken 19 wickets from 17 ODIs and 17 wickets from 15 T20I matches for India. With the bat, he has 241 runs in ODIs with an average of 41.28. In the shortest format, he has only 100 runs. In his First-Class career, Pandya, who plays for Baroda, has 746 runs at an average of 27.62. His highest individual score of 90. The right-handed batsman is yet to score a hundred in any format of the game.
