Patel was playing the Ranji Trophy, leading Gujarat against Mumbai in Hubbali, Karnataka when the news of him being drafted into the Test side came out on Wednesday (November 23). With the Test in Mohali not far away, Patel had to hastily arrange a trip across the country, more than 2000 kms, to reach Chandigarh, Punjab that evening. The excitement of being back in the Indian team should beat the travel blues, though.
Patel’s selection came as a bit of a surprise, as neither was he a part of the recent India A squad for the Australia tour – a team for which Naman Ojha and Sanju Samson were initially selected – nor was he scoring as heavily as Rishabh Pant in domestic cricket this season. The contest was tough with the likes of Aditya Tare, Dinesh Karthik and CM Gautam doing almost as good as him or even slightly better. Nonetheless, even in the stiff competition, Parthiv was confident that his chance was coming.
“(I knew my chances were coming) since it was going to be a long season with 12-13 Test matches in home conditions and I was always amongst the runs and keeping well in domestic cricket. Though I was not in India A, I always kept speaking to the selectors and they kept saying, ‘keep doing what you are doing’. The biggest hope came when I went to Asia Cup as a keeper as MS Dhoni’s cover. So, I knew I had to be ready. I was working hard, so this is definitely not a surprise call,” he said.
