Ajaz Pate Wiki, Biography, Age, Spouse, Net Worth, Fast Facts

A rare event in cricket today, Ajaz has also played homegrown cricket outside his home country heading to Yorkshire County Cricket Club (2019) in England.

Born in Mumbai, Ajaz had emigrated to New Zealand with his family when he was 8 years old. In his formative years, he bowled with his left arm.

It was clearly in his mid-20s that he understood that he would be in an ideal situation switching to becoming a bowler, as his height would be a limiting variable in becoming a good speed bowler.

He had first come into the spotlight in the 2015-16 season of the Plunket Shield (New Zealand’s premier homegrown front-row cricket contest) when he bested the competition’s wicket-taking schemes with 43 excuses. .

He was also the leading wicket-taker in the following two seasons (2016-17 and 2017-18), with 44 and 48 excuses, separately. In the rest of those seasons, his bowling was fundamental in the rematch of his group’s title.

Following his efforts, in April 2018, he was named “Men’s Domestic Player of the Year” at the New Zealand Cricket Awards.

Due to his predominantly reliable display in homegrown cricket, he was picked in each of New Zealand’s 3 teams (Tests, ODI and T20I) for their reciprocal series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in late 2018.

He proceeded to make his Test and T20I debut for New Zealand on that visit, becoming the fifth Indian beginner cricketer to play for New Zealand after Ted Badcock, Tom Puna, Ish Sodhi and Jeet Raval.

On his Test match debut for New Zealand, against Pakistan in November 2018, he had knocked out 5 wickets in the later innings, helping New Zealand win by the thinnest edges – 4 runs. He was named the ‘Man of the Match’. With 13 wickets in 3 matches, he was New Zealand’s most notable wicket-taker in the Test series.

New Zealand proceeded to win the series with a 2-1 lead. It was New Zealand’s first away Test series victory against Pakistan starting in around 1969.

In December 2021, in the second match of New Zealand’s two-sided test series against India, in their introduction to the world city of Mumbai, he had recently become only the third bowler in history to take each of the 10 wickets in a test. match tickets.

The two bowlers who achieved this intriguing achievement before Ajaz were England’s Jim Laker (in 1956) and India’s Anil Kumble (1999).

He completed the coordinate with overall numbers of 14/225, the best by any bowler in a test match against India, beating Sir Ian Botham’s 13/106 from each 1980.

These were also the second-best bowling figures by a New Zealander in a Test match of cricket, behind only Sir Richard Hadlee who took 15/123 against Australia in Brisbane in 1985.

The match was quite a mixed experience for him in light of the fact that regardless of his generational heroism in his hometown, India defeated New Zealand in 372 shows and took the series to a 1-0 lead.

This was India’s most outstanding win in Test cricket history and New Zealand’s most harrowing defeat at any time.

On the goodness of this success, India had also displaced New Zealand from the top position in the ICC test rankings. Ajaz consequently became the bowler with the best test match figures (14/225) to finish on the losing side.

He had also made his point in the main game of the series, this time with the bat.

With New Zealand struggling at 155/9 in 89.2 overs, in dismal pursuit of a 284-run target, he had entered the field as the last batsman.

However, resisting all expectations, he bravely held off debutant Rachin Ravindra for 8.4 overs, giving New Zealand a draw, thus keeping the series level at 0–0 with a game remaining.