Champions Trophy 2025 – The Axar Patel method: Minimum fuss, maximum efficiency

As he has been several times in the past, Kane Williamson was being a thorn in India’s side. One of the most accomplished players of the turning ball, the former New Zealand captain was at it again, working a single there, bunting a two here. Occasionally, he would play the sweep, or rock right back and find the narrow gap between the two points, or a backward point and a short third-man. And more than once, he made room to go inside-out, with the turn, over cover when Ravindra Jadeja flighted the ball and got it to break away from the right-hander.

It was a masterclass in the art of batting on a turning track against a high-quality, four-pronged spin attack. Soft of hands, deft of feet, Williamson loomed between India and a perfect record in the group stage of the Champions Trophy. The outcome wouldn’t impact the qualification scenario, but it was important in the context of carrying confidence and momentum to the knockouts.

India were not running scared. They knew they were one wicket away from getting stuck into the tail. Not necessarily Williamson’s wicket, but that would be great, wouldn’t it?

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Axar Patel had bowled eight tidy overs (none for 27) in his first spell, a spell that began in the seventh over with the Kiwis on 28 for one, chasing 250 in their bid to make it three out of three. The tall left-arm spinner has been Rohit Sharma’s go-to man in the PowerPlay, making light of having only two outfielders with his unerring accuracy. In those eight overs, he fell into excellent rhythm, attacking the stumps, giving nothing away in terms of room or shortness in length. New Zealand might have believed – or not – that he was the weakest link in the Indian spin quartet, but if they had designs of going after him, Axar thwarted those with his control.

Brought back in the 39th over, more than an hour and a quarter after his last ball, Axar landed the ball on a coin straightaway. He doesn’t get enough credit for being a smart bowler, but he is nothing if not that.

Occasionally round-armish but often delivering from a good height, he looks straightforward enough to negotiate but when the ball fizzes out of his hand, it can be quite a handful. Patrolling the outfield, Axar had seen how Williamson had taken on Jadeja. He perhaps visualised that when he came on for his last ball of the match. Williamson came down the track, making just a little bit of room, but where Jadeja had turned the ball away and allowed the batter to free his arms, Axar slid it in, cramping him. 

Gone!

Caught in no-man’s land, Williamson was beaten on the inside-edge as the ball scooted through to K.L. Rahul, who had had a challenging night behind the sticks. This time, Rahul was on point. He gathered the ball low but securely and held his pose, waiting an eternity to remove the bails as Williamson kept walking towards the dressing room. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Axar finished with one for 32, the big wicket off his last ball thoroughly deserved, given the control he had given Rohit and his own spinning colleagues. He hasn’t been, perhaps never will be, hailed as an outstanding spinner because he doesn’t give it a mighty rip and beat batters with flight and drift and dip and loop and turn and guile, but there are many ways to skin a cat and few are more effective in doing so than the 31-year-old from Anand.

Did we say Axar doesn’t get enough credit for being a smart bowler? Scratch that. Axar Patel perhaps doesn’t get enough credit for being a smart cricketer. For being a very, very good limited-overs all-rounder – an accurate bowler who can get among the wickets when there is assistance, a terriffic batter who is so wonderfully adept at playing the situation and a gun fielder. There was a time when Axar was considered the poor man’s Jadeja. No longer, no sir.

Axar’s limited-overs career began in June 2014 and meandered along till the end of 2017, when he suddenly went out of circulation. He largely batted at No. 7 or 8, occasionally at No. 9, and didn’t always bowl his full quota of overs.

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He primarily played when Jadeja wasn’t available, but for nearly four years, he went out of white-ball circulation as other ‘all-rounders’ were preferred, among them Krunal Pandya who was considered a like-for-like replacement. In this period, Axar did make his Test debut against England at home in early 2021 when Jadeja was injured and responded in style with 27 wickets in three Tests, including 20 in back-to-back games in Ahmedabad to facilitate India’s entry into the final of the inaugural World Test Championship.

His Test bowling gradually suffered thereafter – only 28 wickets in his subsequent eight Tests – while his batting went in the other direction. Having batted at No. 8 on debut, he moved up to No. 6, and once No. 5, in his last Test series, also against England at home, early last year as the team management showed confidence in his defensive approach in the absence of several key top-order batters, including Virat Kohli and Rahul. But it is in the two white-ball formats that he has found his true calling since his limited-overs international comeback in June 2022.

His roles have differed depending on the format. In T20Is, he is used more as a restrictive option, with whatever wickets he picks up considered a bonus. In the longer white-ball version, he is slightly more attacking but not overtly so, as evidenced by 71 wickets from 66 matches. But his economy is a staggering 4.49 – the corresponding number is 7.70 in 71 T20Is – and given that he often bowls definitely one and potentially two overs in the PowerPlay, that is an exceptional return.

At the T20 World Cup in the Americas last year, Axar was brilliant all the way through, except in his final over of the competition, against South Africa in Bridgetown. His fourth over, the 15th of the final, went for 24 as Heinrich Klaasen got stuck into him. It threatened to undo all his good work of the preceding month but his teammates rallied around him immediately after those six balls.

Rishabh Pant had an arm around him, Jasprit Bumrah came haring from the boundary with words of encouragement and Rohit pointed out that Klaasen had hit good balls for boundaries. Axar was lifted; he could feel the love, he knew how much he was liked and backed within the team environment.

By then, Axar had played a crucial hand with the bat, walking in at 34 for three in the fth over with Keshav Maharaj and Kagiso Rabada running riot. Rohit could have sent one of Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya or the more experienced Jadeja to ll the breach but plumped for Axar instead, condent that the rangy left-hander could take the ght to the bowling. Alongside a singularly becalmed Virat Kohli, who at one stage went 35 deliveries without a boundary, Axar steadied the ship. Or should it be, ahead of Kohli? Axar’s contribution in a fourth-wicket stand of 72 was a sparkling 47, off 31 deliveries with four towering sixes as he freed his arms and used his long levers to great effect. Axar hadn’t been sent to just stem the flow of wickets. He was given the license to play with freedom, to use his discretion, and he did that superbly, the big shots coming without the slightest amount of risk.

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Humble, grounded

There is much to like and admire about Axar Patel. Easygoing and with a ready smile, he wears his status as one of India’s more influential white-ball cricketers most lightly.

Humble and grounded, he has remained untouched by his performances, and if he is bothered that in certain quarters, he might not have got his due, that doesn’t seem to affect him at all. He isn’t a showman, he doesn’t play to the gallery.

He gets on with his business with minimum fuss and maximum effect, one of the primary reasons why he is such a popular figure in the dressing-room. In this Indian ODI set-up, formidable and well-stocked, it’s great credit to Axar that he has worked his way up to the No. 5 slot, occupied with such felicity by Rahul until recently.

It’s not that Rahul has experienced a slump in form, necessitating a shake-up. Rohit and Gautam Gambhir felt India would be better served with the left-handed Axar going up and Rahul dropping down to No. 6, a message that was conveyed to him at the start of the England ODIs at home last month.

Axar responded with 52 and 41* in his first two hits at No. 5, then shifted gears downwards in a crucial fourth-wicket stand of 98 with Shreyas Iyer against New Zealand in Dubai on Sunday, a stand that allowed India to recover from 30 for three to post 249 for nine.

During his studied 42 (61b), Axar showcased surety in defence as well as a complete commitment to attack when he did decide to open his shoulders. He reiterated that the confidence reposed in him by Rohit wasn’t without basis, his propensity to float without being pulled down by the weight of expectations a huge bonus for a side that prides itself on versatility and flexibility.

Axar is a prime example of the white-ball template that India have made their own under Rohit. That he is an outstanding fielder – Imam-ul-Haq, anyone? – adds to the aura and makes him one of the more indispensable limited-overs exponents in the country. Credit? Oh well…