5 cricketers both MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli didn’t back

2. Axar Patel

Axar Patel is one of those cricketers who came up the ranks through the IPL. The left-handed all-rounder first burst on to the scene in Kings XI Punjab’s brilliant run in 2014. He impressed everybody with his accurate left-arm spin which yielded 16 wickets in the season and handy batting lower down the order.

He was soon drafted into India’s white-ball squad as they rested a few key players when they toured Bangladesh right after the 2014 IPL season. The left-arm spinner was in and around the team and was also a part of the 2015 World Cup squad. The Gujarat lad was always India’s backup option and they kept going back to him but didn’t really persist with him.

This went on until late 2017. India’s captains changed hands and yet the use of Axar Patel never changed. When Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja got a break or when the latter was excluded for a brief period, Axar found himself playing. The same was the case when the two wrist-spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal burst on to the international scene.

However, Axar last played in October 2017 and despite consistently performing for India ‘A’, he has been left out. He hasn’t been backed as the first-choice spinner either by Dhoni or Kohli.