Ahmedabad: Last week of February 2021, Axar PatelIt was at the revamped Narendra Modi Stadium that his international career really took off, where he played a starring role in destroying England in the Test series. His first three years away from the Indian team have transformed him as a cricketer. Five years later, he will be on home soil as a core member of the leadership group when India take on South Africa in the T20 World Cup on Sunday. Push boundaries with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!In an interview with TOI in January, Axar claimed that the three years he spent away from the Indian team helped him identify the areas he needed to work on to become a better person and understand what he needed to become a better cricketer.
Aqsa’s carefree and hilarious on-screen demeanor often became a meme, garnering even more attention on social media. He likes to keep everything around him as simple as possible. That is, for all the wealth he has earned through cricket, he prefers building a new snazzy house in his hometown Nadiad, about 60 kilometers from Ahmedabad. When he’s not with the Indian team, he’s at his cozy spot in Nadiad. However, the process he follows to stay at the top as an international cricketer is as rigorous and detailed as any other. Extensive training sessions are arranged at the GS Patel Stadium in Kheda district. It’s just that he has put together a safe and strong core team outside of Indian cricket. His wife, Meha, leads the team that develops his meal plan. “Meha is a qualified nutritionist. Even when he traveled with the Indian team, every meal of his was cleaned by Meha,” Kewal Patel, Aksa’s childhood friend and confidant in Nadiad, told TOI. “He might leave the Indian team a few times in a year. He likes to eat paneer vada pav when he comes here and spends time with us. Mehar does not stop him from eating but adjusts the next few meals accordingly,” Kewal said. Much of Axar’s growth as a cricketer and batsman took place at the GS Patel Stadium. Axar personally transformed the gym’s infrastructure and turned it into a high-end fitness center for young people in the area. “He usually followed the routine assigned to him by the BCCI support staff. But he realized that local kids also needed better facilities. Five years ago, he said he would fund the renovation of the gym. The gym walls have pictures of all India’s top cricketers,” Kewal said. Soon, Kewal was talking about Axar’s meticulous cricket training. Before joining the Indian team for this T20 World Cup, he participated in a training session with Delhi Capitals in Delhi and took batting practice after the 15th over. The team management may have told him that he needs to play a lower position, which is different from his previous assignment. “He arranges training based on different batting situations. For the past five or six years, he has been batting for four to five hours every day. On some days, he will practice with the new ball. Other days, he will bat in the center square and only practice power shots.” Kewal revealed. In a chat with TOI, Axar said that he regained confidence in his batting after MS Dhoni asked him to think like a normal batsman around 2018 and that he can continue his efforts with the Capitals with the support of Ricky Ponting from 2019 onwards. What training did he do for bowling? “He was just spot bowling. His only focus was on bowling it right. He would hit the same spot at different speeds and angles for a long time,” Kewal said. Axar has grabbed more headlines in the past year or so after his utility batting overshadowed left-arm spin batsman Axar. But he endured heavy criticism from pundits during the first half of his international career and it’s hard to underestimate his continued contribution on the ball. In 2021, he told TOI that he came to believe that he must be a special bowler to make it this far, rather than being a traditional left-arm spin bowler. “I did talk to R Ashwin but he did some very deep thinking. I couldn’t do that,” joked Axar. It’s been a long journey for one of the most under-the-radar Indian cricketers of the past five years. The next two-and-a-half weeks could propel him into becoming the face of Indian cricket.
