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Continuing his fairytale start to life in Test cricket, Axar Patel picked up a five-wicket haul on the first day of the third Test against England at his home ground in Ahmedabad.
Buoyed by his fabulous performance in his debut Test in Chennai, where he picked up a five-wicket haul, Axar Patel made the pink ball talk. The bamboozled visiting batsmen found it extremely difficult to negotiate the variations of the 27-year-old.
Twitterati hails Axar Patel for his fabulous bowling performance.
England struggled to read Axar Patel, as the left-arm spinner got the ball to spin as well zip off the surface, picking up a six-wicket haul in the process.
Axar Patel ended with figures of 6-38, helping Team India skittle out the visitors for a meagre 112 runs midway through the second session.
Ecstatic fans took to Twitter to laud the local boy's sensational performance. Here's what some of them said in this regard:
The Gujarat all-rounder was drafted into the Indian Test team after all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja failed to recover from a thumb injury sustained Down Under.
Initially, there were a few question marks on whether the 27-year-old could fill Jadeja's void. However, Axar Patel emphatically put such doubts to rest with a sensational performance in his very first Test outing, taking to the longest format of the game like a duck to water.
After missing the first Test due to a knee injury, Axar Patel made his much-awaited Test debut in the second game in Chennai. Replacing Washington Sundar, who scored an impressive 85* but struggled with the ball in the first Test, Axar Patel hit the ground running.
After picking up two wickets in the first innings, Axar Patel's five-wicket haul in the second innings helped India level the series with a thumping 317-run win.
On the first day of the third Test, a day-night affair in Ahmedabad, Axar Patel seemingly continued from where he left off in Chennai, despite the colour of the ball changing from red to pink.
Thanks to Axar Patel's exploits in front of his home crowd in Ahmedabad, Team India are firmly in the ascendancy. The hosts will now look to bat the visitors out of the Test and take a big step towards sealing their place in the inaugural World Test Championship final at Lord's later this summer.
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