SURESHOT SPINNER
Match-winner Axar says confidence did trick
Ahmedabad, 26: It was a long wait for Axar Patel and it didn’t help that everyone around him had just one question for the past three years — “Why aren’t you in the Indian team?”.
But Patel was unfazed as he knew, his time would come. “I think it’s all about confidence,” said the 27-year-old spinner from Anand in Gujarat.
With his record 11 wickets in the day-night third Test against England, the left-arm spinner finally found his big moment in international cricket, seven years after he made his India debut in an ODI against Bangladesh.
Since that day, he has been in and out of the team with the spin allrounder’s spot firmly with Ravindra Jadeja.
In this series too, he made it because Jadeja was out injured. He hadn’t been in the national team since 2018 and made his Test debut in the second game against England last week in Chennai.
“I have been out of the team for three years and at that time, I used to think about the areas of my game which need to be worked upon. So, I was working on my bowling and batting,” he told Hardik Pandya in a interview, thoroughly enjoying his good time.
“When you are out of the team, many people, friends keep asking you ‘why aren’t you in the team despite doing well?’ These things keep coming in the mind,” he said.
“So, I told myself ‘just wait for the right time and whenever I get an opportunity I will give my 100 per cent’,” he added.
Captain Virat Kohli said England may have been “relieved” when Jadeja was injured. “But then this guy comes in. Bowls it quicker and from a bigger height as well. It is a tribute to his hard work, his accuracy. It is impossible to sweep him, impossible to defend him all day. If the wicket gives him anything he is just a lethal bowler,” Virat added.
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Feb.