Why Axar Patel at No. 5 has been a good idea for India
Throw in his bowling, and there’s a strong case to be made that he was the Champions Trophy’s MVP
Karthik Krishnaswamy11-Mar-2025
Axar Patel is all smiles ahead of the final•ICC via Getty Images
It was a moment of resounding clarity, the kind of moment that tells you everything about a cricketer.Axar Patel was facing his first ball since Shreyas Iyer, with whom he had put on 61 for the fourth wicket, had been dismissed. It was the second ball since that dismissal, and the last ball of that over. India needed 68 off 67 balls to win the Champions Trophy.It was the kind of situation where other batters may have looked to play out that ball and give the match situation a chance to settle. Not Axar.Related
India's white-ball wizards need a new cheat code for sustained excellence
How Rohit's India have been dominating ICC tournaments
Rohit time is right on time for India – and it's not over yet
Rohit, Rahul, spinners lead India to third Champions Trophy title
India's spin quartet pulls the strings in dominant display
Mitchell Santner floated the ball up into his arc, and this may perhaps have been deliberate, a challenge, with deep backward square leg, a squarish deep midwicket and long-on back on the leg-side boundary. “I know you like that slog-sweep,” Santner seemed to tell Axar. “Let’s see if you try one now, in this situation.”Axar took it on, and nailed it, clearing the leaping deep midwicket fielder to his left.It was a moment that took you back to last year’s T20 World Cup final, when Axar walked in at 34 for 3 and hit four sixes – two via the slog-sweep – in a 31-ball 47 that kick-started India’s recovery. It was exactly the sort of clinical counterattack India needed at that stage. They couldn’t afford to lose wickets to low-percentage shots, but they couldn’t risk coming to a standstill, and in Axar they had just the right man for the job, a batter with the ability to handle himself against both pace and spin, a small but deadly set of go-to shots, and the conviction to take on those shots given half a chance.The six off Santner came from the same conviction. This was a match-up Axar backed himself to dominate, left-hand batter against left-arm fingerspinner, and the ball was in his arc. How did it matter that India had just lost a wicket?There’s always a measure of risk when you try to hit sixes, of course, and Axar knows this; his first innings in this Champions Trophy, against Bangladesh, had ended on 8 when he miscued a slog-sweep off the legspinner Rishad Hossain.Axar Patel complemented his exploits at No. 5 with tidy overs with the ball•AFP/Getty ImagesThere’s no way, however, that India’s team management would have minded him trying that shot. They’ve turned him into a regular No. 5 precisely for being willing to take on those risks, and having the judgement and skill to pull them off more often than not.”The clear message was given to him when we started the ODI series against England [before the Champions Trophy], that no matter what the situation is, you will bat at five,” Rohit Sharma said ahead of the semi-final against Australia. “And the kind of improvement he’s shown with his bat over the last year or so is superb to watch. And that is where we felt that we can utilise him to bat in the middle and bat freely. And that is what he does.”He likes to take the game on, likes to play his shots. And sometimes [when] you are in trouble, you want to always take that positive route. And with Axar, we definitely can do that. He showed it in the T20 World Cup final, which was a very, very crucial knock. Again, in that game as well, we were three down and for him to come out and bat like that was superb and got us to a decent total in the end. And that is what we expect.”Axar’s left-handedness is a key reason too, breaking up an otherwise entirely right-handed top order. And beyond everything else, he simply has a superb all-round game against spin. In the period since the 2023 World Cup final, Axar has the best average strike rate of all India batters against spin through the middle overs of ODIs (minimum 90 balls faced). Of the six batters who meet that cut-off, he’s the only one with either a 40-plus average or a 90-plus strike rate.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
The strike rate is partly down to the role he’s expected to play, suggesting that India view him as a slightly more expendable wicket in the middle overs. But the average shows just how judicious and efficient his risk-taking has been. And those numbers are even more impressive when you consider that a high percentage of India’s recent ODI cricket has come on the sharp turners of Sri Lanka and the sluggish, slow-scoring pitches in Dubai.Just with the bat alone, Axar was one of India’s key players during the Champions Trophy. He came in at 30 for 3 and put on 98 with Shreyas Iyer in the group game against New Zealand, and then 44 with Virat Kohli and 61 with Iyer during tense periods in India’s semi-final and final chases.Critics of Axar’s move to No. 5 have tended to suggest that it does a disservice to KL Rahul by pushing him down to No. 6. The Champions Trophy only showed, however, that even if Rahul shares some of Axar’s strengths, his wider range of shots, particularly against pace, makes him better suited than Axar to batting in the last 10 overs with one extra fielder outside the 30-yard circle. Of the nine batters to face at least 20 balls in this phase in Dubai – the dissimilarity of this venue to the three in Pakistan makes it necessary to isolate it here – only Michael Bracewell (151.51) scored quicker than Rahul (131.25), who made 84 off 64 balls across three innings without being dismissed.
Critics of Axar’s move to No. 5 have tended to suggest that it does a disservice to KL Rahul by pushing him down to No. 6. The Champions Trophy only showed, however, that even if Rahul shares some of Axar’s strengths, his wider range of shots, particularly against pace, makes him better suited than Axar to batting in the last 10 overs.
Axar’s promotion, then, was a win-win for all concerned. Throw in his bowling, and there’s a strong case to be made that he was the tournament’s MVP, which is remarkable considering that he ended it with the lowest batting average and strike rate of India’s top six, and the highest bowling average and strike rate of all their bowlers.The main currency of Axar’s bowling, of course, is his economy rate, and in that regard he was the best of their spinners, finishing level with Ravindra Jadeja at 4.35. And where Jadeja was the only India spinner to not bowl in the first powerplay, Axar bowled five overs in that phase, conceded just 3.2 per over, and picked up two wickets – which, but for his captain’s slippery fingers at slip, could have been three in three balls.That moment left the Champions Trophy with one of its most enduring visuals, Rohit smacking the turf in frustration for having denied Axar his hat-trick. He promised to take Axar for dinner to make it up to him; after everything else he contributed to India’s tournament win, dinner might have to come with a Michelin star or three.