The most unluckiest player to have missed the bus for T20 World Cup 2016 is Axar Patel. He performed well in the limited overs cricket before. He was dropped from the T20 squad which toured Australia. He was named in the ODI squad but was not included in the T20 squad. It was a big shocker for many.
Now, how it was a shocker? Let’s take you to IPL 2014 where he bowled well and economically. Riding on his “economic” bowling he was included in the squad which toured Bangladesh. He did not had a great tour and was dropped for the next series against West Indies for the highly rated bowler of that time Kuldeep Yadav who was not given a chance to showcase his talent. And then surprisingly when West Indies called off the tour and Sri Lankan team was called as a replacement, Axar made a comeback for that series. Yes, he did well in series but the question which arises here is why he was included in place of Kuldeep Yadav as the young guy was not given a single chance. Well, to find the answer we have to dig up the mind of our selectors.
Axar was selected to play tri-series against Australia and England in Australia and managed to secure a place in the 2015 World cup squad. Axar performed well in the tri series but he lost his place in playing XI to experienced Ravindra Jadeja in the World Cup who had an average run in the tournament. So the question is why he was not given a single chance in the World cup despite his good performance in the tri-series.
Yes, it’s difficult to change the winning combination but if a player is having an average show for 6-7 consecutive matches than is it not unfair not to give other a chance. The captain has to realise that as sometimes a captain has to take harsh decisions and have to drop his “favourite player”.
Let’s get back to Axar who is termed as a T20 specialist player. He made his T20I debut after playing ODI cricket for over a year. It’s a strange fact and difficult to digest. He made a perfect debut in T20 format a he earned the “man of the match” award for himself on his debut, a rare feat achieved by him.
So, what went wrong with Axar despite a good performance by him in the international cricket. May be our captain sees more ability in Jadeja over Axar, yes this may be the case but is dropping a player for no reason is the only solution to this “problem of choice”.
Surely Dropping Axar for no reason is unfair to him without giving him a fair and equal chance, it`s quite harsh on him but still the young fighter has pledged to make a comeback as IPL is just a month away and again hundreds of Indian cricketers will play to showcase their talent in front of selectors but only few favourites will dominate the side in the coming years.