After Axar Patel won the T20 World Cup with India in 2024, his homecoming offered a rare glimpse into the cricketer whose public profile tends to exist in inverse proportion to his performances. The Kheda District Cricket Association decided to host a grand felicitation for him with celebrations expected to pour onto the streets of Nadiad. Over 40,000 people were likely to turn up. Yet the plan was scuppered.

"When Axar found out about our plans, he just didn't come back home," recalls Manish Desai, the president of Kheda District Cricket Association. "He gets awkward when we try to make him feel special. But if he didn't turn up, I would've been left embarrassed.

"So I called him and requested him not to leave me red-faced. He said he wouldn't mind the felicitation if it was limited to a gathering with kids who play cricket. So we called all the kids of the academy and had a small function where they asked him questions, and he regaled them for a couple of hours."

Axar's humility is echoed by his home town, as well as the clarity he has about where home is. When he walks into the vast Narendra Modi Stadium to play the Netherlands on Wednesday, as the vice captain of the Indian team, some may call it his maiden World Cup game at his home ground.

Yet Axar is particular that Ahmedabad is not his home. It's a city that he has long resisted, despite attempts to convince him of the better 'cricketing opportunities' and more perks on offer.

Other players who have entered the big time have decided that only a big city could hold the size of their ambitions, but Axar is different. For him, home is Nadiad. Around 60 kms from Ahmedabad is where his people and his heart lie. No temptation, after all, has been more appealing than the prospect of being around his childhood friends and family.

Speak to them and there are no tales of grandeur or largesse, or even a sense of knowing what Axar thinks about his own ambitions as a cricketer. Here is someone who has been critical to India's plans across formats over the last few years, but whose importance is rarely noticed.

As reliable as his performances on the field have been, his life away from cricket remains a story of quiet understatement.

* * *

Nadiad, a small town of approximately 250,000 people, had not produced a cricketer of any note before Axar. It's a town that people aspire to leave - a common running joke being every household in the town has an NRI, with at least one member settled in either USA, UK or Australia.

Axar's resistance couldn't have come from a more ironic place. But neither could the dream to excel in the most competitive vocation in the country come from a person who enjoys his relaxed life - surrounded by friends. He savours this life just like his post-game evenings, amidst a room full of people, some ginger-infused chai and snacks, and laughter that can fill a room. And if permitted by his diet-trackers, a bottle of Fanta.

On the surface, there are no shades of an elite athlete in Axar's personality. Even without getting into the consensus of his friends and teammates, 'Oh! How humble and grounded he is,' there is a sense of calm with which he navigates his profession. He likes his junk food and soft drinks, gym training isn't the most appealing aspect of his cricket routine, he doesn't get bogged down by a bad day, and doesn't dwell too much on his success. He likes to return to his room, call people over, and regale them with situational jokes - "Pata hai woh aaj kya kiya."

He doesn't let the game weigh in on him. "I've never seen him get angry - whether he gets out on zero, whether he misses a century, or when Rohit Sharma dropped a catch when he was on a hat-trick," claims Soham Desai, who has spent nearly a decade around Axar in his role as the strength and conditioning trainer with the Gujarat and Indian team. "I've seen him upset and irritated, but never angry. It's a very strange phenomenon. There are only two-three guys like that I've seen in cricket. Axar is a very mature and balanced individual who trusts his destiny - very content and simple."

There is a theory that Axar would have been just as content with his life if he was not to become a cricketer. He was academically bright, holding an aspiration to become a mechanical engineer. "Scholar type," is how Abhishek Desai, his friend from Nadiad, refers to him. Axar, uncertain if cricket would offer him a stable career, wanted to study.

He took up cricket because his father, an employee at a co-operative society who was also a cricket buff, had enrolled him to a local academy at the age of 12, and pushed him to pursue the sport. But Nadiad is not a town where sporting dreams spring up, and it was certainly not a town where cricket was pursued competitively in the first decade of this century.

"Nadiad barely has 2.5 lac people, it's a big deal that even Axar has come out of here," Manish, the KDCA president, admits. "At that age especially, our boys are not serious about cricket."

Once when Axar's father went to have a look at his son at the ground, he realised Axar wasn't around. When he went searching for him, Axar was spotted playing tennis-ball cricket with his friends instead.

Yet this laidback approach to the game changed in the wake of a family tragedy. "Once while playing an inter-district Under-16 game, Axar lost his grandmother," Manish says. "When he returned home, his father told him that it was her wish to see him play on television. He was asked to get serious about the game. It was the turning point in Axar's endeavour towards becoming a cricketer."

* * *

Long before Axar came to be known as Bapu, courtesy MS Dhoni's misinformed call which was caught on the stump mic, he was Akki for his friends. Bapu is a term used for Gujaratis from Kathiawar. But, without a fuss, he has accepted the public moniker.

"Axar is exactly what you see, there is no pretense to him," says Roosh Kalaria, Axar's long-time Gujarat teammate. "He may have travelled around the world, but he is still a small town guy at heart. He won't even try to be someone he is not."

Axar's cricket is very much a reflection of that simplicity. His success has been built on a free bat swing and an uncluttered short run-up, bowling consistently on one channel with subtle variations.

As effective as it is, his cricket isn't glamorous. He isn't a player that will make promo campaigns for the World Cup. He's easily missed even in a practice session. But the fact that he's vice captain of one of the most dominant T20 sides assembled by India speaks volumes of what those within the circles of the Indian team see of him. It's also validation for what he is: a quiet, unassuming presence, a crafty left-arm spinner - a must-have in a modern T20 side.

Axar, who had emerged as the leading all-rounder in the 2012-13 season of Under-19 cricket, had started out as a batter in age-group cricket who proved more than effective with left-arm spin. "He was always a natural cricketer," says Hitesh Majumdar, his former Gujarat coach. It's a line repeated by several of Axar's peers and trainers.

There is only one person who rejects this claim of Axar being a 'natural talent'. For Manpreet Juneja, Axar's former state teammate, the all-rounder is a product of 'smart' work and not exceptional talent.

"Axar was never a find or an extraordinary player when he came in. He was very one-dimensional in terms of - he would bowl accurately and quick, and didn't turn the ball much. He had a decent height to give that extra bounce. Once the IPL happened, he got better with time. He is a very evolved bowler now."

Unlike Juneja's assessment, evidently there was enough talent in Axar for him to be counted among the very best in the country right out of his teens. After all, his rise in professional cricket was pretty swift. He made his first-class debut at the age of 18, and within a few months he was picked by Mumbai Indians to play in the IPL. Less than a year later, he featured for India in the Under-23 Asia Cup. At the age of 20, he made his international debut. He did all that with his primary skill being orthodox left-arm spin, an art-form that has no shortage of talent in Indian cricket.

The season before Axar was promoted to the national team, three left-arm spinners had outperformed him in Ranji Trophy - Vishal Dabholkar, Akshay Darekar and Shadab Jakati - and two others were already waiting in the wings. What stood in Axar's advantage was his ability to win games with both bat and ball - much like Ravindra Jadeja. At that point, his overall skillset was being banked upon by the selectors as a critical back-up, and a long-term investment.

But even beyond that, for all the limitations in his bowling, his style was different from other conventional left-arm spinners, posing certain unique difficulties for the batters. "The biggest element of surprise with Axar is the way he uses his height with a short stride," explains Juneja. "Secondly, with his bowling style you won't know which ball will turn and which one will keep straight - there are very subtle changes in his point of release, which makes it very difficult for the batter to gauge from his hand position.

"Akki is also difficult to pick from the way the revs come from the seam. A couple of seasons before his Test debut, he started using those slower balls and now has control over his speeds, which is one extra weapon he has got up his sleeves, and uses brilliantly in the T20 format. That's his x-factor."

Beyond what Juneja explained, Priyank Panchal, Axar's former state teammate, believes it's the accuracy and consistency of Axar's lengths which makes him stand out from the plethora of left-arm spinners in the domestic circuit.

But Juneja doesn't want to credit that alone for Axar's success. "Not a lot of people realise - it's not just being the most accurate that makes him most dangerous. It's about adjusting the lengths according to batters. Axar is very good with adjusting those lengths. Because of that and the angle that he creates, the arm ball that he bowls, you will find a lot of batters who end up playing a square cut and getting bowled or played on."

In T20 cricket, 199 times batters have attempted to cut Axar, out of which they have been cleaned up six times. More significantly, every time a batter has attempted a cut shot off Axar's bowling, he has conceded runs at an economy rate of only 6.12, with only 12 percent of those shots running away for boundaries. In ODIs and Tests, he has combined to strike 10 times in a similar fashion.

According to Juneja, Axar was able to develop that delivery courtesy playing several games at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi, where the square boundaries are bigger than the straight ones. That adaptation has also helped him become more economical as a bowler.

It is this aspect of smartness in his game that is often lost even among his own teammates. And they are not to be faulted for thinking otherwise.

* * *

In the first half of IPL 2023, Delhi Capitals were struggling to get good starts, with David Warner going slow and the rest of the top-order crumbling early. Axar, coming out to bat usually at No 7 or 8, was left to resurrect the innings. When asked if he had a word with the coaches seeking a promotion in batting order, Axar's response was laced with humour. "Waise bhi jab mein batting karne aata hoon, 10-12 over to bache rehte hai. To kya farak padta hai? (How does it matter? Whenever I walk out to bat, I get 10-12 overs to face)"

His ability to laugh at his team's misery, especially when they were enduring a run of poor form, stood out. His humorous responses carried on for 10 more minutes before he left to board the team bus.

"That is exactly who Axar is," Juneja points out when his attention is turned towards that conversation. Axar has this innate ability to laugh at his bad days.

"He can quickly switch off from what has happened, how the game has gone - good or bad," says Juneja. "He loves his time with his buddies, and he keeps them very close. Whether it's the young cricketers of Nadiad or his teammates in Gujarat, it is his room where you gather and have some fun, conversations, with food and snacks."

Axar's exterior persona of being relaxed and jovial, and always ready to crack a joke, takes away from the thinking cap he puts on. He doesn't talk about the game once he steps off the field, doesn't break it down or over-analyse the process. It holds equally true to his process of self-learning. Axar is a player who has developed his game without the need of a formal coach. He takes the instructions from his coaches and trainers, and trains with the help of a few teenagers at a local academy in Nadiad. None of his friends can really point out who guides him or where the learnings come from.

"I'm close to both Jasprit and Akki, both of whom are self-learners," Juneja says, but makes a differentiation. "Jasprit would still have someone from the MI coaching staff to guide him whenever he would go there - the likes of Shane Bond, Malinga, etc. With Akki, I've never heard him say things like 'I tried this out, it really helped me'. Akki is a self-made bootstrapped entrepreneur who kept building his company one step at a time. He is a very smart cricketer. He just knows what needs to be done."

Dhruv Raval, who has been a long-time roommate of Axar, dismisses the theory of Axar always being funny and jolly. "There is more to him, a serious side to the way he approaches his game. He thinks a lot about it, just that not many get to see it." Raval claims to have seen the other side of Axar, but when asked to recall instances, he couldn't think of any. Instead, he shared anecdotes of how Axar would make him laugh while batting in the middle, even in matches that are tensely stuck.

Juneja believes the reason Axar's smartness is not seen on the surface is because he does not put up a facade of being an 'intellectual'. "He is not one of those guys who would speak to you in a very presentable or convincing manner in which you feel that this guy has a lot of substance. He is not a pseudo-intellect. But he is intelligent. He understands the game very well. The choice of what he wants to do at what moment, at least for himself, is very good. He controls the game very well."

He elucidates his point with a story from a Ranji Trophy game against Baroda in October 2016. On a flat track, chasing 545 for a first-innings lead against Baroda's line-up which included the Pathan brothers, Munaf Patel and the Pandya brothers, the third new ball was moving around a bit. With Rujul Bhatt retired hurt, Baroda needed just five more wickets to gain the first innings lead. Instead of playing out the new ball, Axar stepped out and smashed two successive boundaries off Irfan. "The ball stopped moving, it was that simple," claims Juneja.

* * *

As loved as Axar is among his peers, there is one aspect of his existence that leaves most of his teammates irritated - his ability to feed on junk and yet not put on weight. "He could eat as much as he wanted, whatever he wanted, and nothing seemed to affect his body. The rest of us had to be conscious of everything we ate, and still feel guilty whenever there was an excess in our diet," Kalaria, the Gujarat teammate, rants.

It isn't just about his food. For a person who can come up with creative nicknames for his friends, he was called 'Oscar,' a wordplay for his excuses to avoid gym training. But all of that started to change from 2018.

"Axar had a tendency of getting freak injuries," says Soham, the trainer. "There would be times he would go as a substitute fielder and injure himself. There would be times he would have his finger pressed against the ground while fielding. That is when he started asking questions and becoming mature with his life outside cricket.

"Axar was always a very good runner, and just because he could do a good yo-yo didn't mean the training should have ended there. Back then, while he was doing well in cricket, he didn't have the vision for what was needed to stay on top in international cricket for 15 years. That mindset wasn't there. He used to eat a lot of chatpata snacks, but just because it didn't show up in his weight, didn't mean that he was fueling himself well.

"The communication with him took over 3 to 4 years to get him to buy into this pattern of healthy diet and training. I didn't want him to change completely. Otherwise, he would have felt suppressed and it would've come out emotionally, where one day he would start eating all over again. So we had to plan it in a way where he could eat all that he wanted, do all that he wanted, but also we are able to get a routine which would help him achieve what he wanted to do in India colours."

That change started having an impact soon. Those close to him saw a definite shift in Axar's psyche in the way he approached the game starting from somewhere around 2021-22. The most obvious of the changes resulted in better returns as a batter. But they all pin-point to different reasons and different times.

* * *

For many in Gujarat, one of the biggest mysteries about Axar's career was why he was not able to translate his batting potential - that they had seen close-up for so many years - at the international stage or in the IPL. His notable contributions were few and far between.

"He scored easy hundreds in the domestic circuit," notes Juneja. "In the longer format, we could see that the moving ball was not a problem for him, seaming conditions were not a problem, turn was not a problem. On a turning track, he had the confidence to step down the ground and hit an offspinner over his head. When you see such things, you know that skill is not a problem. The same bowler he is thrashing Vijay Hazare, why was he not able to showcase that in the IPL?"

Soham believes the turning point to his confidence as a batter was the ODI against West Indies in Port of Spain in 2022, where Axar hammered an unbeaten 64 off 35, helping India chase down 87 off the last nine overs, while largely batting with the tail. India won the match by two wickets and two balls to spare, and it instilled in him a sense of confidence that started translating in different aspects of the game. By then, the years of convincing by Soham to bring his diet and training in order, had also started to materialise.

"As soon as his second weapon - batting - started coming in, that confidence came into his bowling as well," Juneja says. "He was always doing well as a bowler, but you somehow didn't get that feeling of a responsible cricketer with him. There was always a missing link, and he too didn't exhibit that well, because his batting wasn't clicking. After that knock, he bowled with a bit more flair, he took more risks, more wickets, and scored more runs. That is when he started feeling more settled."

That phase coincided with him marking his Test debut, and returning 27 wickets in his debut series. With Ravindra Jadeja's bowling stocks dropping, Axar received more frequent opportunities across formats. In Tests, he provided much-needed depth with the bat in home conditions, allowing the team to play three spinners. At Delhi Capitals, in the 2023 season, he became their most important contributor with the bat. For the Indian team, he offered the left-handed match-up in the middle order - both in ODIs and T20Is - playing vital knocks in the 2024 T20 World Cup as well as the 2025 Champions Trophy.

Axar Patel's batting evolution since making his Test debut (on February 13, 2021)

In the 2024 T20 World Cup, he was the only left-hander used as a floater in a right-heavy line-up, and in the final of the tournament, he played a defining innings that separated the two teams - even if it was drowned out by other big moments in the game. Virat Kohli was given the Player of the Match award, Suryakumar Yadav took a sensational catch at the boundary, and Jasprit Bumrah kept producing the game-changing overs.

It was typical of Axar to make a critical contribution and yet hardly get noticed. This evasion of the headlines has continued - when the BCCI announced its annual central contracts for 2025-26, which saw Axar being demoted to 'C' grade, there was virtually no discussion on public platforms regarding that decision. The headlines were all about Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, two players who had already retired from two of the three formats.

In this cricketing world, driven by brand management and PR, it's easy to forget Axar, a player who is rarely in controversy or the spotlight of star-lit commercials, displaying the unfanciest of cricketing skills. His contribution with the bat in the final was almost forgotten after he was smashed by Heinrich Klassen in his last over of the tense chase. What is also not best remembered are his other significant performances in that World Cup - he was the Player of the Match in the semifinals against England and bowled a critical 16th over in the group game against Pakistan, conceding only two runs and tightening the low-target chase for the opposition.

A player who can change the course of a game with both bat and ball, Axar could on most days be expected to do the 'bits-and-pieces' role. There might not be much of his presence on the highlight reels, but he has turned up with vital contributions in all three aspects of the game, across formats.

Irrespective of where Axar is forgotten, in Nadiad, every bit of his performance is remembered and celebrated. There are many to claim that Axar is a close friend. "Woh yaaron ka yaar hai," says Kalaria. Raval chimes in to add, "Everyone knows that if you need him around, he will come to you even if it's 2 AM in the night." Juneja sings a similar tune, "There might be very few around who don't like Axar."

But it's strange that nobody seems to know what Axar thinks about his own ambitions as a cricketer or what it was like for him to be in and around the Indian setup for nearly a decade without getting a long, consistent run in the team - even as he performed well across formats. Despite spending several hours around him, when asked to share an anecdote, his friends can't offer much beyond 'bahut mazaa aata hai (it's a lot of fun)'.

Is there another version of Axar that nobody knows? Or is that happy-go-lucky nature all that encompasses his character?

Irrespective, every time they try to recall an incident with Axar, they are left with a smile, talking about a friend who always seems content with who he is, till the time he has a bagful of snacks next to him and some desi hip-hop and rap music to listen to in the company of his friends. Probably, that's what defines him - a person who likes to make others smile.

Axar still trains at the small KDCA ground in Nadiad, and trains in the local gym - even when better offers have come his way to elevate his cricket by moving to Ahmedabad. He now has the company of several other players from his home town who have gone on to play for the state team as well as the IPL - Vishal Jayswal, Abhishek Desai, Ripal Patel.

Every now and then, Axar turns up to see young kids of Nadiad practise at the local academy. He even rolls his arms over at times, serving up some loose deliveries to let those kids drive him for a boundary. "He knows it makes their day," Manish says. "They go back home telling their parents 'aaj Axarbhai ko boundary lagaya'.