Meet the Pandya brothers

It's mid-February in Vadodara but the first signs of summer have begun intruding into what have otherwise been pleasant evenings. Good on Hardik Pandya, then, for picking the venerable Moti Bagh - among the oldest and greenest grounds in the country - as our meeting point.

He and his brother Krunal have had an unforgettable last few months. Hardik's career trajectory surged dramatically when an impressive debut T20I series in Australia was followed by greater success at home against Sri Lanka. Unsurprisingly he was named in the Asia Cup and World T20 squads. His older brother, Krunal, on the other hand, went from a long injury-enforced layoff to being picked by Mumbai Indians for Rs 2 crore.

The idea was to catch up with the Vadodara boys together, but given their schedules don't match, there's no option but to meet them separately. As the sun begins to set, Hardik, 22, has parked himself near the edge of the field after practice and is running his game by his coaches. He looks taller and more muscular than on TV, a sleeveless India jumper giving ample play to his well-sculpted biceps.

He gets on the phone with his manager and there is some animated "show me the money" talk to do with contracts and sponsorships. The conversation reflects the swag and street-smartness seen in his cricket. Depending on where you stand, Hardik could range anywhere between expressive and brash, or just "hyper" - as Jitendra Singh, or Jitu bhai, the brothers' coach and mentor for many years, decribes him.

While we walk to his car, Hardik smiles, recalling his earliest struggle with his "attitude problem". "I don't fault anyone [for misconstruing my attitude as arrogance] because if a 16-year-old turns up after colouring his hair then logon ke aankhon mein toh dukhega [people's eyes are going to hurt]," he says and chuckles. "The reason I didn't play a lot of junior cricket is because of this misconception about attitude."

The hair colour was washed off but Hardik's progress was scuttled because of an unfortunate miscommunication. The story goes that he was asked by a senior coach to perform ball-boy duties for an India-Australia game but Hardik refused since he had to appear for his school exams the same day. Krunal, unaware of Hardik's situation, had filled up the ball-boy application form on his behalf and submitted it without consulting Hardik.

The coach was slighted by how Hardik had supposedly bypassed him. "This is where the trouble started," Hardik says. "The issue of my attitude cropped up in an incident in which I had no role to play." He had to miss two years of Under-16 cricket and was on the verge of being dropped again in his last year at the U-19 level. The assistant coach of the U-19 team and three other senior players had to plead with the selectors for Hardik's inclusion, and he showed his gratitude by smashing big hundreds.

We are driving to his home in Gorwa, about nine kilometres from Moti Bagh, when I ask if he has ever felt the need to temper his "attitude". Surely his coaches must have advised him to tone it down?

"I don't listen to everybody's advice. That's why I have got here," he says, but he insists he has never been disrespectful or arrogant and that he only speaks his mind. "Had I ever been a fake-waala banda [a fake dude] I would have been more scared and concerned about what people think about me. I can't worry about perceptions. Those who know me understand me."

Hardik says he has been received very warmly in the Indian team. "Jaan hoon mein logon ki. Ek dum laadla type ka." [I am the darling of the team.]" He says he has never once felt out of depth. "The guys enjoy watching what I do, and that's only because I do what I do genuinely. I never knew Mahi bhai [MS Dhoni] talks so freely. During the Australia series [Jasprit] Bumrah, me and him spent a lot of time talking about every possible topic."

Hardik's on-field theatrics have barely escaped attention - be it the wild sprint-and-leap routine after claiming his first international wicket or his rage-filled celebration after taking a catch off Bangladesh's Mohammad Mithun's in the World T20. I ask if he was doing it for the cameras, but he says if he were merely showing off, people would have seen through it. "If I act smart, my team-mates, who have much more experience, are much smarter. It won't take them long to spot a fake when they see one. Cricket teaches people to spot even the minutest things. I, too, have the gift of judging people quickly."

Equally nifty, Hardik says, are his powers of learning. He talks of his transformation from a boy who could barely speak a word of English to someone who can now hold his own while speaking the language. "Nobody who interacts with me can say I am a Class IX dropout," he says, lapsing seamlessly from Gujarati to Hindi to English. "I learnt quickly by just talking to people - mostly of the broken variety initially, but I kept at it. One of my coaches, who met me recently, was amazed at my fluency. I told him, 'Mere andar chool itni thi… seekhna hai mujhe' [I was so determined to learn the language].

"I firmly believe that it's very important to know English. I still remember that when I was in Class IX, I wasn't even able to say 'Hi' or 'Hello'. As extroverted as I am today, I used to be a very shy boy then."

A phrase that frequently finds its way into the conversation is "king-size". Hardik isn't coy speaking about his indulgences or being narcissistic. "Main khud ko bahut pyaar karta hoon [I love myself a lot]. You could call it self-obsessed or self-respect, but the bottom line is, I like everything about myself," he says.

"I work very hard and have just as much fun. I indulge all my extravagances: I like splurging on expensive clothes, watches and sunglasses. Kabhi galat kaam kar ke nahin jeena hai, lekin jeena hai style mein. King-size. Simple funda" [I want to live life king-size but not with ill-gotten gains. It's as simple as that].

"But I want everybody to progress and have a good life. I can't wish bad things for people, I am not made that way. That's perhaps why God has helped me rise as quickly as I have."

He received his first paycheck, of Rs 1500, when he was 13, for an age-group tournament. Till a few years ago, he would, along with Krunal, take part in local tournaments in neighbouring districts, where they would get paid. That was their first taste of being paid "professionals".

He goes back to the conversation with his manager and reveals he turned down a contract worth Rs 25 lakh for an apparel brand. "I know I can make more money if I wait a little longer. I know how much I am capable of earning if I perform better. I gamble on myself but I know I will do well."

He says he is clear-minded enough to not let money come in the way of relationships. He cites the example of his longstanding association with his bat contractor, RNS. "I declined a contract worth several lakh for merely playing with the brand's sticker on my bat. It was double what I was making in my entire contract with RNS, but RNS was the company that provided me with kits when I could not even afford a bat.

"When I started out, I borrowed a couple of bats from Irfan [Pathan] bhai before a domestic match. He immediately sent word to RNS to have kits dispatched to me. So my respect for the company grew. They supported me when I was a nobody. Now when I am doing well why should I jump ship? Look, I know I will make money with my cricket, and even endorsements - I am stylish and I can carry myself well.

"There was a time when I had to make do with Rs 100 for days together. Now, even if I play for one more year, I know I will make enough money to buy a [Audi] Q7, so money is not going to go away anywhere, but my relationships with people matter a lot. I still need to achieve a lot more as a cricketer, and if I take care of that, everything else will fall in place. I haven't achieved anything yet."

About three days before the conversation with Hardik, I meet Krunal, older by two years, who is practising at the Reliance Stadium. It has been a year since he has played any serious cricket, after sustaining a labral tear in his shoulder. But with the IPL only a couple of months away, his prep is in full swing. The DY Patil T20 tournament, a popular Mumbai-based inter-club competition, is Krunal's first shot at game time, and so here he is, sweating it out under the hot sun. He is in the nets, giving some serious tonk to balls Jeetu bhai is feeding him - a couple of shots nearly take out Jeetu.

Krunal bats and bowls left-hand, and once he has tested his hitting range, he places a cone near what would be yorker length and fires in fastish fingerspin.

When he breaks for lunch and we get talking, it is easy to see that he and Hardik aren't much like each other. Krunal's sense of style appears to mirror that of Hardik's - he says he wears Hardik's clothes, since "he is more fashion-conscious" - but that aside, he provides a calm counterpoint to Hardik's simmering energy.

The Pandya brothers' love affair with cricket began in the mid-'90s, when they were still in Surat, a port city in the state of Gujarat and an industrial hub famous for diamond polishing. Their father, Himanshu, ran a successful car-finance business. Krunal, then six, was already relishing the challenges of "season ball" cricket, and a local coach told his father he had promise. Himanshu then took Krunal to Kiran More's academy in Vadodara, where More, impressed by what he saw, advised the boy be enrolled there. Himanshu knew that Surat wasn't really a cricketing destination, and so, around 1997-98, he shut down his business and moved his family to Vadodara.

"Woh hi badi baat hai [that was a huge thing]," Krunal says. "What is amazing is how my father left behind a settled business for a six-year-old boy. It wasn't as if I was on the verge of playing in the Ranji Trophy." He also recalls being ferried to and from the ground every afternoon for three and a half years by his father, who had to ride his bike upwards of 50 kilometres both ways. Krunal's kitbag would be squeezed in the front while he would be fast asleep, clutching his father during the half-hour ride.

Hardik's role initially was limited to bouncing around the cricket field. Like in Krunal's case, the turning pointing in Hardik's life came when he was six. "Woh ground pe aise hi masti kar raha tha [he was just having fun at the ground] when Kiran sir saw him and asked Hardik to report to practice from the next day," Krunal says.

Krunal and Hardik then came through the ranks together and even ended up playing in the same U-19 team, where 16-year-old Hardik's double-century helped Baroda gun down a steep target against Mumbai. The "228" on the back of Hardik's Mumbai Indians jersey is a nod to the innings.

Krunal says there has never been any competition between him and Hardik, but admits to having sibling fights all the time. "If a stranger sees us fight he would be absolutely convinced we are sworn enemies," Krunal says with a laugh. "We fight every day over little things, but all it takes is two minutes for us to patch up.

"After Hardik was selected for the national side he playfully taunted me by asking how it felt to be the brother of an Indian cricketer. After the IPL auction this year I responded by asking him how it felt to be the brother of a billionaire cricketer," he laughs. "But we can't live without each other. Whenever he does well I am happier than he is and vice-versa."

They received a blow in the late 2000s when Himanshu developed health complications, which in turn triggered financial troubles. Ten years after moving to Vadodara, he realised that his car-finance business hadn't picked up in the new city and went back to Surat to open a passport consultancy. But by 2010-11, Himanshu, a diabetic, suffered three heart attacks in two years. There was no choice but to wind up the new enterprise, which meant that the family's lone source of income was cut. "We had bought a Toyota Etios just a few months before papa's heart attack, but we didn't have enough money to pay the instalment dues," Krunal says.

Both Krunal and Hardik say it was difficult for people to come to terms with the fact that they had fallen on bad times. "People would say, 'Come on, they own a car. How can they be struggling?'" Krunal says. "What people didn't know was, we would fill up petrol for Rs 150 and get by. Whenever the car ran dry, we would just about make enough money to buy a bottle of petrol. But we never told anyone this. We didn't want to gain sympathy. We value our izzat [self-respect] a lot."

Krunal says the car was on the verge of being seized but they somehow averted the situation. Now the car too enjoys the good times the family has had since. "We will never, ever sell that car," Krunal says.

He has had his own battles to fight recently, not having played any representative cricket over the last year. His big-hitting and tight bowling in the DY Patil tournament attracted scouts from Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils. But just when his performances were being noticed, he sustained a labral tear while diving for a ball in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament last year. Krunal avoided going to a cricket ground for months after his surgery because the sheer helplessness of being unable to be a part of the action frustrated him.

"Rahul Sanghvi sir and Kiran More sir [Mumbai Indians scouts] and Pravin Amre sir [Delhi Daredevils scout] would call me regularly to get updates about my progress [after a shoulder surgery last year]. That two big franchises were following my growth and showing faith in me motivated me to get fit quickly."

The Pandya residence bears no mark of the riches that have come Hardik's and Krunal's way lately. Located in an old-fashioned apartment complex, it's your regular middle-class home. When their father walks into the living room I stand up. Hardik bursts out laughing: "Arrey baitho yaar, itna formality hum bhi nahin karte" [Sit down. We are not big on formality].

Hardik and Krunal have spoken to me about not keeping secrets from their parents. "My family is definitely a chilled-out one. I always keep joking that we are not a 21st-century family but a 31st-century one," Krunal says with a laugh. "Each of us knows what's going on in the others' lives. I can directly go and talk to my parents about anything. Our parents know where we go, which female friends we meet and stuff."

When I ask Himanshu about the easy-going environment, Hardik interjects: "My father was a very modern man himself in his younger days. It's better I don't elaborate further," he says with a laugh. Hardik believes that the freedom his brother and he were given from a young age ensured they did not go astray. "I always believe that only when limitations are set, people try to cross the line. When there are no restrictions, you aren't desperate. I set my boundaries clearly: there are certain things I resolved not to do - I won't elaborate on them - and I still don't. I decided I won't smoke and I don't."

Their mother, Nalini, says there were relatives who disapproved of such parenting, but she wouldn't have done it any other way. "We keep arguing, fighting among ourselves but never let one another down. We have never forced anything on them. When Hardik was more keen on cricket than studying, we never forced him to do otherwise."

Himanshu admits to being staggered at times at the speed with which Hardik has progressed, and hopes for his boys to emulate the famous cricketing siblings from Vadodara - the Pathan brothers. "I have never had to control him. He takes after me in regards to being aggressive," he says. "I felt very happy when Shane Bond complimented him as 'a good one' and also when Ricky Ponting called him a rock star. My only desire is to see both the brothers play for India for a long time."