In the winter of 2008, Hardik Pandya told his family that he wanted to quit studies. He was in Class IX at the time. The chosen moment of declaration: post an under-16 Baroda vs Mumbai match. Hardik, who represented Team Baroda, had struck 228 in the game. He was a middle-order batsman and a leg spinner.

"Before that, he had scored a century in another match. We were all excited about his performances and he chose the right moment to plead with us," says Hardik's father, Himanshu. "I must also confess that he was very poor in studies," he adds with a laugh.

The family consulted a few people and then decided to let the boy concentrate on cricket and cricket alone. Since then, Hardik has been taking risks and seizing the moments whenever they come his way.

But even for someone who knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life that early on, one thing is for sure - Hardik couldn't have imagined that in a span of 10 years he would play for India in all three formats of the game and would be compared to the legendary Kapil Dev, and then, a bit controversially, to the English all-rounder, Ben Stokes.

"He has never been scared of taking chances. I would say he is a good example of fortune favouring the brave," says a proud Himanshu. But if you listen closely, it was he who courted fortune in the first place.

That was sometime in 1998. Himanshu worked in Surat as a passport and car finance agent. One day, he decided to take his elder son Krunal Pandya to the Alembic Cricket Ground in Baroda and requested Kiran More, the former India wicket keeper, to enrol him in his newly-launched academy.

The family settled down in Baroda, while Himanshu continued to shuttle between Surat and Baroda for a few months. Looking back, More says that more than the son's talent, it was the father's passion that impressed him.

"We didn't take kids below the age of 12 at that time. But after meeting Himanshu I decided to enrol even under-10 kids," says More. At the time, Hardik was five.

Mukesh Narula, a coach at the academy, remembers Hardik accompanying his brother to the Alembic ground. He recalls, "For the first few years, Hardik would just run around the ground and pick up the balls or bowl a bit of leg spin. It was when he started batting that we noticed that he could hit the ball well."

Krunal and Hardik came to be known as the "Maggi Bhais" as their kits always had packets of the instant noodles. "They liked Maggi. It was not that we couldn't afford proper food," says Himanshu.

Although Baroda has produced a long line of cricketers such as Kiran More, Nayan Mongia, Munaf Patel, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan and others in recent years, the city is not known for club-level or intra-city age-group tournaments. This means, except for the Board of Control for Cricket in India or BCCI-organised events, there are few opportunities for talented young cricketers to shine. This is true now, as it was 10 years ago.

Sanjeev Sawant, a former Baroda coach, tells The Telegraph, "You will hardly hear about cricketers from Baroda until they perform well at all-India level tournaments. But good players from other states make news even when they are at the junior level." With no tournaments to play in, Hardik would spend the whole day at the academy, while his brother Krunal would continue with his studies and also play age-group tournaments for Baroda.

Hardik made his debut for Baroda for the under-15 team in the 2007-08 season in the Polly Umrigar Trophy. He took a few wickets with his leg spin but made no impact with the bat. He was made captain of the Baroda under-16 team as most of the members of the team were from the Kiran More Academy and he was seen as a natural leader. At the zonal Vijay Merchant Trophy in 2008, he scored two centuries.

"He is somebody who looks for a bigger stage. Playing against tough teams like Mumbai, Gujarat and others was that stage for him and he did well," says Atul Bedade, the current coach of the Baroda Ranji Trophy team.

Within Baroda and among young cricketers, Hardik was also gaining notoriety for his antics. Recalls More, "He was quite a character. He wore flashy dresses and his hairstyles kept changing. He was more in the West Indian mould. He was serious about his cricket but was also having fun." Look closely while Hardik's at play, he's almost Caribbean of cut and character - wiry, wired-up, flamboyant.

It was perhaps because of these idiosyncrasies that his Baroda under-16 coach complained of Hardik's "attitude issues". "What attitude issues can a 15-year-old have? Maybe he had faked an injury or something like that. I knew he was serious about cricket and there's nothing that would come in the way," says More.

Hardik was 19 when the absence of a fast bowler during a match prompted the coach to ask him to open the bowling. He discovered that he could bowl fast and the leg-spinning career was given a quiet burial.

With a well-settled senior team full of stalwarts like the Pathan brothers and Munaf Patel, the Pandya brothers found it hard to break into the Baroda team. Their self confidence may have wavered a bit, but not the determination to succeed.

The year 2013 began on a rough note. "I suffered back-to-back heart attacks and there was no income other than my own," recalls Himanshu. But that was not what others saw every time the two brothers pulled into the cricket grounds of Baroda in their gleaming white car, and swaggered out with their cricketing kits. That summer the family couldn't even afford the electricity bill - it had run up to Rs 24,000 in a span of two months.

"The car and the air conditioners were on EMI. It was a tough time, but we were too proud to go and tell anybody," says Himanshu. He recalls how his sons used to buy petrol in a bottle, rather than pull into a petrol pump and experience the ignominy of asking the attendant to fill one or two litres.

Things started looking up later that year. Pandya made his first-class debut in a Ranji match against Madhya Pradesh.

Thereafter, things started happening with such speed that the Pandyas say it is difficult to remember the exact sequence of events.

In early 2014, Hardik was playing a Twenty20 zonal league (west zone) match against Mumbai. John Wright, the former India coach and the then Mumbai Indians coach, was in the stands. All Hardik had to do was grab Wright's attention and he did just that.

He scored a swashbuckling 57-ball 82 against a Mumbai team that comprised Zaheer Khan and Dhaval Kulkarni. Wright would later ask the Mumbai Indians' management to snap him up in the auctions.

Hardik got a chance to play his first IPL match against Bangalore. As he walked in to bat at No. 8, after a flurry of three wickets in the 19th over, Harbhajan Singh who was at the crease told him, " Jee le zindagi", or go live it up. Hardik hit two sixes in the final over and scored 16 off six balls.

He went on to hit some match-winning knocks for Mumbai in the 2015 tournament. Even Sachin Tendulkar told him that if he continued to do well, he could make it to the Indian team within a year.

Hardik got in six months ahead.

In early 2016, M.S.K. Prasad, chairman of the BCCI selection committee was in the Wankhede Stadium stands along with another selector, when Pandya bludgeoned the Vidar-bha bowling attack. He hit eight sixes and an unbeaten 86 in the domestic Twenty20 tournament named after the legendary Mushtaq Ali.

"My jaw dropped watching him bat. I had seen him on TV playing for Mumbai Indians, but seeing him play in the ground was a great experience. He batted well and bowled at a decent pace," says Prasad.

Pandya was soon chosen to represent the country in the Twenty20 team on tour of Australia. With a smooth action and ability to generate speed and swing, today he is being touted as the best fast-bowling all-rounder after Kapil Dev.

Not so fast, says More. "He has a long way to go. But there is no doubt about his talent and his drive." He also seems to have the temperament and stomach to survive in the big league. He is naturally flamboyant, on and off field. In fact, Prasad tells us that Hardik was asked to "mellow down" as he was getting too aggressive on the field. "It was for his own good. Now I see that he has improved a lot," he adds.

Stardom and celebrity has meant an upswing in the family fortunes. The Pandyas currently reside in a rented two-bedroom flat at Parishram Park at Gorwa in Baroda. A 6,500-square-foot, four-bedroom penthouse is being readied at Vasna road for the family.

Hardik still loves Maggi, although he no longer carries it in his kit. Kinita Kadakia Patel, the Mumbai Indians' nutritionist, says his diet has undergone a huge change. "Earlier, he ate to survive; now he eats to play."

Hardik is part of a WhatsApp group comprising a few Baroda Ranji players. He started it within days of debuting in first-class cricket; called it "Legends in the Making". Even if Hardik doesn't become a legend, he has made sure you can never accuse of him not grabbing every chance that came his way.