Before the T20 World Cup began, there was wide-spread speculation regarding Indian cricket team star Hardik Pandya's personal life. Some reports claimed that all was not well between Pandya and his wife Natasa Stankovic, and that they were headed for divorce. However, none of them said anything on the rumours. In the midst of this, Pandya has started performing well in the T20 World Cup. He is among wickets and this is bound to relieve the Indian team management.
In the midst of this Pandya had a brief meeting with Ricky Ponting, who is in USA as an expert for the T20 World Cup. The video of the meeting was uploaded by ICC in its YouTube channel. The interaction went like this.
Hardik Pandya: "Ricky! How's everything? How's family?"
Ricky Ponting: "They're good mate. Very good! What About You?"
Hardik Pandya: "All good."
Earlier, it seemed like everything is alright as Natasa restored their wedding pictures on social media platform Instagram. The rumours started when an user on Reddit pointed out that Natasa archived photos of her wedding and the actress did not attend any Mumbai Indians matches in the recently concluded IPL 2024. However, with the pictures coming back, a lot of users expressed their relief as well as delight at the development.
Meanwhile, India have qualified for the T20 World Cup Super 8 stage. India skipper Rohit Sharma on Wednesday admitted it wasn't easy playing on a two-paced newly-laid drop-in pitch at Nassau County ground and the team had to stick through till the end to notch up wins in each of their three matches in the ongoing T20 World Cup. India recorded the highest successful chase at the venue when they scored 111/3 in reply to USA's 110/8 after Arshdeep Singh (4/9), Suryakumar Yadav (50 not out) and Shivam Dube (31) played key roles.
“We knew it would be tough. Credit to us for the way we held our nerve and got that partnership. Credit to Surya and Dube for showing the maturity and taking us through,” Rohit said after the match.
The skipper seemed relieved more than happy that they have crossed the first hurdle at the global meet.
“Being in the Super Eight is a big relief — playing cricket here wasn't easy (as) it could have been anyone's game. We had to stick through till the end in all three games. We will take a lot of confidence from these wins,” he added.