Cricket
Not every team's World Cup journey is only about smiles, wins, and laughs. Some moments do tend to come during WC, some harsh decisions or changes that spark anger among players in the dressing room, and things get heated up.
India's T20 captain, Suryakumar Yadav, shared the incident on Axar Patel's exclusion from the playing XI just before the crucial Super 8 match against South Africa.
"He was very angry, and he should have been. He’s an experienced player; he leads a franchise. He should be angry. I apologised. I told him I made a mistake and I’m sorry, but it was a call for the team. It was a hard conversation. He took it in his stride, and we talked it through the next day," Surya told the Indian Express.
"That’s his (Abhishek) identity as a player. When he bats for six or eight overs, he finishes games. I told him once: there are nine games in this World Cup, even if you fail in eight of them, score zero in all eight — I am taking the guarantee that you will face the first ball in the final. Such players change games when they bat. I knew a day would come where he would finish it off," Surya said.
"In the final, Axar sat next to me and said, we have two world No. 1 players in this team and they will fire today. Abhishek was working so hard, and in the final, he scored 50 off 18 balls. Six overs, 90 runs. From there, the game was completely different. It’s very important to persist with such players," he added.
Moments like these can push players to work even harder. For Axar, the setback became another reason to stay ready and fight for his place.