Kolkata: Left-arm spinner Axar Patel joked in a video chat with Harshal Patel that it looks like ‘Patels are winning everything’. The comment came after Harshal said that player of the match awards are shared between them.
After Harshal won the Player of the Match award on debut for figures of 2/25 in the second T20I at Ranchi, it was Axar’s turn to claim the award for his spell of 3/9 in India inflicting a 3-0 clean sweep over New Zealand in the T20I series at Kolkata. Harshal, on the other hand, took the ‘gamechanger’ award at Eden Gardens for his spell of 2/26 and playing a handy cameo of 18 off 11 balls.
“I don’t know, we haven’t decided it but it seems like the Man of the Match will stay between us Patels!” joked Harshal in a video uploaded by BCCI Monday. Axar laughingly replied, “It looks like Patels are winning everything.”
Commenting on his spell which broke the back of New Z’aland’s chase, Axar said, “It feels great to start your over with a wicket. It gives you a different level of confidence altogether. The ball was stopping and it was spinning too. So, I was having a lot of fun. That’s why I believe I got three wickets in the Power-play.”
Quizzed about his debut series, Harshal remarked, “It was an exceptional feeling. I mean, I didn’t expect the debut match to go this well because all my debuts before today have never been this good. But I executed my skills well and the result was also in our favour and we ended up winning the game.”
Harshal quipped that the change in results leading to his call-up in the Indian team have mainly been due to a shift in mindset. “The change for me has mainly been in the mindset. I had all these skills previously as well. The mindset change in the last two years has now fetched me the results. Whatever I did in the IPL, I had decided to carry the same mindset in this series. Those things are working for me and I am very happy about it.”
