IPL 2022 | Hardik Pandya incredibly humble, says Gujarat Titans mentor Gary Kirsten

Gujarat Titans (GT) won the Indian Premier League (IPL) title in their inaugural season, which saw them get the better of much more experienced sides. Gujarat's hard work paid off on Sunday evening as they lifted the IPL trophy after a convincing performance against Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the final.

Pandya's captaincy has been praised by all his teammates for the freedom and confidence he gives on the ground. Now, team mentor Gary Kirsten has also opened up about Pandya, saying that despite being such a high-profile player, he is humble and knows his responsibilities.

According to NDTV, Kirsten said, "He has been fantastic, I've looked working with him. He's a high-profile player in India but he's incredibly humble, wanting to learn as a leader and engage with his players which I thing is really, really important. He's tried to help the youngsters, he's come in and played a different responsibility."

These are high words coming from Kirsten, who has worked with MS Dhoni and Graeme Smith in the past. The former World Cup-winning India coach also spoke about his experience in this season's IPL.

"You never stop learning as a coach, every IPL is a learning experience, that's what I enjoy. I've loved working with Ashish (Nehra), he's really strong tactically - trying to put a gameplan together on the fly is not easy. There are so many variable in each game, but what I've enjoyed has been the responsibility players have taken to win games for us," the former Royal Challengers Bangalore coach said.

The former South African opener also gave insights into how the franchise went about identifying players alongside coach Nehra.

"You're looking for good balance, good depth in the auction but most importantly you're looking for players who can do different roles, the one thing we've learnt with Ashish is finding guys who were versatile, and at 4, 5 and 6 - we've got that," he said.

Kirsten sounded off by lauding his team that came out of tricky situations and won games that seemed nearly impossible. Gujarat finished on top of the points table in the league stage with ten wins and four losses.

"We all got energy out of it, we've had a great bowling attack - through the end we went a bowler strong and a batter light, but we were always confident, just to get good balance in the team," concluded the 54-year-old.