Axar Patel latest Indian to sign for county cricket this season
What's the story?
India's limited-overs left-arm spinner Axar Patel has signed up with Durham for the upcoming county cricket season in England, thus joining a string of Indian cricketers to have confirmed their presence in the competition this year. Axar will play the last six Championship matches for Durham, with the first one due on August 19 against Glamorgan in Cardiff.
In case you didn't know...
Axar, 24, follows into the footsteps of his countrymates Cheteshwar Pujara, Ishant Sharma and Varun Aaron, who have confirmed their appearance for Yorkshire, Sussex and Leicestershire, respectively, during the 2018 domestic English season.
Also present will be India's captain Virat Kohli and their premier Test spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, though both are yet to decide on their teams. Reports have earlier claimed that the former might head to Surrey while any official agreement from the latter remains due.
The heart of the matter
The left-armer, who has fine abilities with the bat too, represents Gujarat in the Ranji Trophy, for whom he has played 23 first-class matches since his debut in the 2012-13 season.
In those games, Axar has bagged 79 wickets at 30.38 while accumulating over a thousand runs at a brilliant average of 48.46. With the bat, he has slammed ten half-centuries with his only century being a 110* against Baroda in 2016.
Axar got 1/35 for his side Kings XI Punjab in the first match of the 2018 edition of the IPL, having been the only one to be retained by the side ahead of the auctions in January.
What's next?
The County Championship begins on April 13 with three matches each in Division One and Two. Durham, who are a part of Division Two, kick-off their campaign against Kent on April 20. Axar though would join the side for matches against Glamorgan, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Leicestershire and Middlesex.
Author's take
With intense competition for the spinner's slot in the Indian side across formats, Axar's move to fly to England would expose him to alien conditions and act as an ideal learning curve in seam-friendly conditions, having grown up on the spinning pitches of India.