He kept guiding me – Axar Patel reveals how Virat Kohli’s advice helped in T20 World Cup final against South Africa

India’s all-rounder Axar Patel played a vital knock in the all-important T20 World Cup final against South Africa at Barbados. The Men in Blue were in a spot of bother at 34-3 when they lost early wickets of Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, and Suryakumar Yadav.

Patel revealed how Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid asked him to pad up when they lost two quick wickets. When SKY was dismissed and Patel was going down to bat, Hardik Pandya gave him simple but useful advice – watch the ball, hit the ball.

“Rohit bhai was standing beside me when Rishabh Pant got out. He told me ‘Axar pads pehen le’. After that (Yuzvendra) Chahal came running to tell me that Rahul (Dravid) Bhai wants me to pad up. When I was padding up I did not know what to do. We were two wickets down and I had still not analysed the pitch. Next I saw Suryakumar (Yadav) also got out. Things happened so suddenly that I did not have time to think. When I was going down the staircase, Hardik told me in Gujarati not to take any stress. ‘Just watch the ball and hit the ball,’ he said and it stuck with me,” said Axar while talking to Cricbuzz.

On the other hand, Patel added a fine alliance of 72 runs with Virat Kohli, who scored a match-winning knock of 76 runs. Patel scored a crucial knock of 31-ball 47 and helped India in posting 176 runs on the board. The southpaw revealed Kohli told him to go for an attacking shot if the ball was there in his arc.

“I hit a boundary off the first ball I faced. I became very confident. I spoke to Virat bhai and he kept guiding me. He said, ‘I’m there. If you think that you can hit, then go for it.’ The constant communication was helpful. The rest is history,” said Axar.

Patel is part of both the T20I and ODI squads against Sri Lanka.