With the bat, the left-hander scored an unbeaten 21 runs off just 11 balls. His knock was laced with a boundary and a maximum. Later, having bowled four overs, he conceded 20 runs and grabbed two wickets
Axar Patel celebrates a wicket with skipper Suryakumar Yadav during the match (Pic: X/@BCCI)
In the fourth T20I match against Australia, Team India's star all-rounder Axar Patel delivered a stunning show, both with bat and ball at the Heritage Bank Stadium in Queensland.
With the bat, the left-hander scored an unbeaten 21 runs off just 11 balls. His knock was laced with a boundary and a maximum. Later, having bowled four overs, he conceded 20 runs and grabbed two wickets.
Reflecting on his batting performance, Axar said that he received a message from the dressing room to take the game deep till the last over.
"Obviously I knew it was tough because wickets were falling back to back. The message that I got from the dressing room was to take it to the last over because there weren't any batsmen after me," Axar said in a video interview with teammate and fellow all-rounder Shivam Dube, posted by the 'bcci.tv'.
Further speaking, he also said during the match, the all-rounder thought that if he holds his shape right, then he could clear the big boundaries at the side.
"So I thought I would take a chance in the last over. The side boundaries were big but I thought if I could hold my shape and watch the ball, I could clear them," he said.
"I have felt in the past that if I think about the size of the boundary and don't hit towards those sides, they become predetermined shots and because of that we make mistakes. I learnt from past mistakes and played my shots here," added the 31-year-old cricketer.
When asked about his bowling performance, the Gujarat-born cricketer said that he was not getting much help from the wicket, and the ball kept skidding throughout the match.
"As a spinner, I felt like, it was important for me to contain. I was looking at that and bowling wicket to wicket because I was not getting much spin but I was getting a little bit of bounce because of the dew. The ball was skidding a lot," he told Dube.
The burly all-rounder asked Axar about the LBW dismissal of Matthew Short, which was the result of an accurate review taken by him in consultation with Jitesh Sharma.
"I'm never ready to take a review. But when the ball hit (his pads) this time, I think it stayed low. And the kind of action that I have, I bowl a little wide off the crease. So I always feel that the ball will hit outside the wicket or go from an angle," he explained.
"But in this I knew that the ball was hitting and (although) it could have been a little outside the off stump, we could take a chance on umpire's call and when I spoke to Jitu, he said 'Axar it's inside, I mean in the middle'. So I said 'yes we can take a chance', added the spinner.
The fifth T20I match between India and Australia is scheduled to be played on November 8 at the Gabba.
(With PTI Inputs)
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