Axar Patel has time and again proved his worth in white-ball cricket. He did so yet again against Australia especially in the last two T20Is of the five-match series. He won the player of the match award in both T20Is thanks to his all-round skills taking his tally of such awards to 5 in T20Is.
Th left-arm spinner now has the fifth most Man of the Match awards for India in the shortest format. Virat Kohli is on top in this list with 15 MOM awards while Suryakumar Yadav (13) and Rohit Sharma (12) being the next. Yuvraj Singh is at the fourth position having won it seven times during his illustrious career.
Most Player of the match awards in T20Is for India
| Players |
Number of times MoM awards won |
| Virat Kohli |
15 |
| Suryakumar Yadav |
13 |
| Rohit Sharma |
12 |
| Yuvraj Singh |
7 |
| Axar Patel |
5 |
Meanwhile, Axar Patel is now on top among India's bowlers to win most player of the match awards in T20Is. Earlier, he was on level terms with Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav and Bhuvneshwar Kumar who all had won the award four times.
However, the Gujarat cricketer who was behind all of them before the fourth T20I vs Australia, went past them in just two matches. For the unversed, in the fourth T20I, Axar Patel returned with figures of 3/16 as India defended 174 runs successfully while in the fifth and final match of the series, the left-hander smashed 31 off 21 deliveries and then bowled a miserly spell of 1/14 in four overs. Overall in the series, he accounted for six wickets with four of them coming in the last two matches.
Most Player of the Match awards for India among bowlers
| Players |
Number of awards won |
| Axar Patel |
5 |
| Yuzvendra Chahal |
4 |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar |
4 |
| Jasprit Bumrah |
4 |
| Kuldeep Yadav |
4 |
| Ravi Ashwin |
4 |
