Axar Patel continued his purple patch as he terrorised the Bangladeshi batters in his first over itself in Dubai in the ongoing Champions Trophy fixture against Bangladesh. The left-arm bowler was introduced in the attack in the eight over itself by skipper Rohit Sharma. While some questioned the former's decision to bring the spinner in the power play, the latter vindicated the faith shown in him by the skipper by removing Tanzid Hasan (25), and Mushfiqur Rahim (0) of successive balls.
Axar nearly pulled off a hattrick, but Rohit Sharma at first slip put on an absolute sitter, which denied the left-arm spinner a rare shot at making history. While the India skipper immediately apologized to Axar for dropping the catch, the all-rounder's bowling in the first over was magical, to say the least.
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The ball to get rid of Tanzid was a wide delivery outside off which the batter tried to hang back and force it through off-side. However, the southpaw failed to get the timing right, and could only manage to feather it to wicketkeeper KL Rahul, who took a smart catch. Tanzid's wicket for (25) was crucial he was looking set and looked to convert his start into something big.
The next delivery to Mushfiqur was an in-drifter bowled at 90.7kph. The veteran tried to defend the ball, by coming forward, but the ball spun away a bit and trimmed the shoulder of the bat before going into the wicketkeeper Rahul's hands.
The hattrick ball to Jaker Ali was marginally wide outside off, which the former tried to play by pressing forward. However, he got a thick outside edge, which Rohit failed to latch onto in the first slip.
