New Delhi: Hardik Pandya returned to international cricket alongside other established T20I players in the opening match of the five-match series against England. Since debuting in 2016 Hardik has been a consistent presence in white-ball formats and surpassed Jasprit Bumrah in a prestigious ranking during the first game of the series. The Indian all-rounder has surpassed Bumrah in T20I wickets. Prior to the first T20I both players had 89 wickets each. Pandya has since increased his total to 91 positioning him to potentially become the first Indian bowler to reach 100 wickets in this format. Arshdeep Singh leads Indian bowlers in T20I wickets with a total of 97. Yuzvendra Chahal is close behind with 96 wickets while Bhuvneshwar Kumar ranks fourth with 90 wickets. Hardik made his T20I debut against Australia in January 2016 showcasing his all-around abilities on the field. He swiftly established himself as a key player and participated in the 2016 World Cup under the captaincy of MS Dhoni. In 2022 he took on a leadership role initially serving as the vice-captain during the home T20I series against South Africa. Hardik made his debut as T20I captain in June 2022 during a match against Ireland. He was appointed as the permanent vice-captain for the white-ball formats and supported Rohit Sharma during the 2023 ODI World Cup. Hardik served as Rohits second-in-command during the 2024 T20 World Cup. However following the ICC tournament he was removed from the leadership group with Suryakumar Yadav taking over as the new T20I captain. Shubman Gill was named vice-captain for the white-ball teams. Hardik has accumulated 1700 runs and taken 91 wickets across 110 T20 International matches. In One Day Internationals he has scored 1769 runs and claimed 84 wickets in 86 appearances. Additionally he has participated in 11 Test matches but has not been part of the Test squad since 2021. His last first-class match was in December 2018.