This tall off-spinner from Saurashtra was inducted into the Indian
one-day team after his impressive performances in both the Ranji and
the Duleep Trophy matches in the 1984-85 season. His bowling was
different from the conventional style of flighting the ball to
purchase wickets. Instead, Patel was more of a wrist spinner than a
finger spinner using his height to a great extent in deceiving the
batsman. Generally bowling flat spinners, Patel picked up 21 wickets
in eight innings at an impressive average of 19.52 and in the Duleep
Trophy game he picked up four wickets for West Zone against South Zone
both during the 1984-85 season. This helped him to get noticed by the
selectors who were looking for a replacement for Shivlal Yadav. He
played for India in eight one-dayers all in the same season against
Australia and England. Except for a spell of three for 43 against
Australia at Indore, he did little of note and was discarded.
(AC Ganesh)
