Axar Patel is gradually establishing himself as a reliable spinner in the limited-overs cricket. His economy-rate of 4.73 in 22 ODIs is quite good and he has also grabbed 28 scalps in the bargain. Having reeled off a string of sprightly cameos in the IPL for the Kings XI Punjab, he has demonstrated his potential as a batsman on several occasions.
In an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda ahead of the Australian tour, he speaks on a range of subjects.
On being dubbed as limited-overs specialist – People have seen me bowling only in the ODIs and T20s, hence they have formed this perception that I’m suitable only for limited-overs. Look, one cannot always be exceedingly attacking and flight the ball in the ODIs & T20s. If the pitch is offering a bit of assistance, one can be attacking and look for the wickets, but on absolute belters, one needs to adopt a different approach.
One needs to restrict batsmen and smother runs on wickets where there is no help for spinners whatsoever. If you’re successful in containing batsmen, they make mistakes trying to hit big shots and you get wickets.
Obviously, my approach in longer-format is totally different. My Ranji Trophy record is quite good. I always look to chalk up wickets by being attacking in my approach when I play in the longer-format. You would see that whenever I get to play Test matches for India. One must be competent enough to alter their approach to adapt to different formats.
On his performance against South Africa (2015 ODI series at home) – I went for a lot of runs in one over in the 1st T20 against South Africa (When JP Duminy smashed me for 3 sixes) so I was eager to prove a point. I did not play the 1st ODI but bowled well in the 2nd ODI at Indore when we were defending 247.
The idea was to put the ball in right areas and not let batsmen score runs freely. That ploy worked and I ended up scalping 3 wickets (Including Hashim Amla & Duminy). It was quite satisfying to contribute to the victory.
On bowling to AB de Villiers – He is of course the best batsman in the world. I watched many videos of his batting and observed that a bowler should never chase him when he makes room to play his shots. So I did not try to experiment much and kept bowling around off-stump to him. It worked quite well until the last ODI of the series at Mumbai when AB went berserk.
On competition with Ravindra Jadeja – People are making comparisons between us because we both are left-arm spinners and decent batsmen, but this does not play on our minds. We are only concerned about putting our best foot forward and help India win matches. One does not think ill of his team-mates and want them to fail as cricket is about the team. No individual can be bigger than the team. Whoever performs will be in the playing XI; it is as simple as that.
On a personal level, I have a terrific equation with Jaddu. Since we both are from Gujarat, we understand each other’s distinct dialect and keep cracking jokes. He is quite a jovial person.
On MS Dhoni – Dhoni bhai is a wonderful captain. He knows how to build the team and get the players to rally around. He is always succinct in his praise as well as the advice, but he backs all players to the hilt.
After I went for few runs in the T20 match against South Africa, he told me that no player becomes good or bad by just one performance. He reminded me that I had done well in the past and should bounce back. That’s the kind of encouragement every young player needs.
On his batting skills – I started playing cricket as a batsman. In fact, I represented my state in U-16 as a batsman. I took up part-time bowling to enhance my chances of playing for the country. But at NCA, I was put in the bowlers’ camp since there were hordes of aspiring cricketers in the batsmen’ camp. From that time, I started focusing more on bowling.
I have done reasonably well as a batsman for my state team (Gujarat) in the Ranji Trophy and for Kings XI Punjab in the IPL, but somehow I have not been able to do that well in the ODIs for India. There are no excuses about getting fewer chances to bat since I should have done well in whatever chances I got. I’m hopeful that in the future I shall contribute substantially with the bat too.
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