India had never managed to replace Kapil Dev, and as a result struggled throughout the 90s to find that, ever so necessary, balance in a one-day international side.

New Delhi: Robin Singh, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Sanjay Bangar, Irfan Pathan, Joginder Sharma and Stuart Binny. These names are well known to Indian cricket fans. And those who have followed the game over the past three decades would know what these men symbolised. They were the supposed answer to Indian cricket's search for a (medium) pace bowling all-rounder.

India had never managed to replace Kapil Dev, and as a result struggled throughout the 90s to find that, ever so necessary, balance in a one-day international side. None of the above men could come close to the 'Haryana Hurricane's genius with the ball. They were expected to get the Indian team some quick runs down the order and bowl a few overs without giving away too many runs.

Robin Singh and Irfan Pathan were in a different league from the rest. While Singh could play the enforcer's role down the order, Pathan was one of the finest exponents of swing bowling with the new ball, that the country has produced. Both went on to represent India in well over a hundred one-day games, in different eras, but both fell short of the team's expectations and eventually faded away into obscurity.

The emergence of Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and later Suresh Raina meant India had top order batsmen who could also fill in as part-time spinners, often needed in one-day matches, specially in the sub-continent. But India was desperate for a player who belonged to the breed of the Flintoffs, Pollocks and Watsons of the world.

The IPL gave renewed hope to one group of selectors after another but the maximum India could get to was another part-time spinner who could tonk a few down the order. But Yusuf Pathan too flattered to deceive.

The likes of Joginder and Binny never had the quality to last at the top level, and their honeymoon with international cricket ended sooner than they could imagine. Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja never managed to carry their all-round form of Test cricket to the limited overs arena and the final piece of the jigsaw eluded the 'Men in Blue'.

But the year 2015 saw a lanky youngster hit some lusty blows down the order in the Mumbai Indians jersey. The fact that he could get in a few effective overs of skiddy medium pace added to his repertoire. Pandya grew in stature by bossing the T20 format in the domestic season and that landed him an India cap in the run-up to the 2016 ICC WT20.

Pandya's all-round skills and ability to hit the big shots down the order, coincided perfectly with Raina and Dhoni's waning powers in the death overs and that gave the Baroda boy a place in the WT20 squad. Pandya's moment of reckoning came in the must-win encounter against Bangladesh, when he managed to get India out of jail in a blow hot, blow cold final over.

A maiden ODI cap followed during the home series against New Zealand and with the Indian team undergoing a generational shift in leadership, with Virat Kohli taking over from Mahendra Singh Dhoni in all formats earlier this year, Pandya was in the thick of things with the new leadership trusting him to do the all-rounder's job in the team. He went on to become an integral part of the team that finished runners-up to Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy.

With an eye on the overseas tours in 2018, Kohli decided to gift Pandya a Test cap against the beleaguered Sri Lankans and Pandya responded by scoring an entertaining century and a half-century.

While his Test credentials definitely need to be tested a lot more, Pandya's stock in the Indian set-up has definitely been rising and he has given ample display of his confidence in his abilities with two all-round, man of the match, performances in the series against Australia so far. The management's decision to send him at number 4 in a big chase at Indore on Sunday shows the extent to which the captain and the coach are willing to punt on his raw abilities and this augurs well for Indian cricket.

While comparisons are unfair, they are always bound to be made in a sport like cricket. If Ben Stokes could be compared to Flintoff or even Botham, then why can't we compare Hardik Pandya to Kapil Dev? Yes, he has a lot to prove but the similarities are there. The devil-may-care attitude, that rustic and untamed spirit, that hunger to enter the elite club and yes the raw power to clear the boundary ropes at will, Pandya could well be Kapil 2.0 for India.

Kapil brought with him a freshness that taught India how to win matches and helped them beat the bullies of international cricket. Pandya's raw energy could act as the fuel that further fires up the Virat Kohli generation. Kapil wore India's ODI cap number 25 and Pandya became the 215th player to wear an ODI cap for India. Just saying.