After the T20 World Cup final, I never thought I would be dropped: Axar Patel

Indian all-rounder Axar Patel, who would play a pivotal role in the forthcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2026, has revealed that he thought he would never be dropped from the Indian team after his heroics with the willow in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 final in Barbados.

Notably, Axar played a heroic knock of 47 runs off 31 balls to help India post a match-winning total of 176 runs in the final. He stitched a 72-run partnership with Virat Kohli after the side lost three early wickets.

Speaking exclusively to the Times of India, when asked if his knock in the final helped him to come out of Ravindra Jadeja's shadow, Axar has asserted that he was never competing with Jadeja.

"Absolutely. Since then or just before the T20 World Cup, I have never been seen as a replacement for Jaddu bhai. A spot was created for me. Jaddu bhai and I started playing together. I was never competing with Jaddu bhai. When I used to practice, I used to think what else I could add to my game so that they could never drop me. After the T20 WC final, I never thought I would be dropped,” Axar Patel told TOI.

Furthermore, Axar also revealed MS Dhoni’s advice that helped him regain his confidence during the ICC T20 World Cup 2021. Notably, Dhoni was appointed as the mentor for the mega event in 2021.

"I started as a batter but became a full-time spinner when I reached the NCA. In my early days I didn’t do well with the bat and started doubting myself. When I got dropped in 2018, I worked very hard on my batting. When MS Dhoni was mentor of the 2021 WC team, he told me that in my earlier days, under his captaincy, I put pressure on myself by thinking I had to perform all the time, rather than simply believing that I was a capable batter. Slowly I started implementing what Mahi bhai had told me and I regained my confidence,” he added.

"If I've been sent up the order, that means the team trusts me and I have the talent to perform this role. When I go out to bat, I don’t think I am a floater. The team management tells me that I’m not sent to blindly accelerate the scoring or play out a difficult spell or target a particular spinner. I am given a role like any other specialist batter,” he concluded.

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