Axar's powerplay strategy is to make things difficult for England "without going above and beyond."

He came up with both the ball and the bat to eliminate the reigning champions, England, on a challenging field during a stop-start match.

The captain of India, Rohit Sharma, had informed Axar Patel, when he took the ball in the fourth over in England's chase of 172, that the pitch was keeping low and skidding, and that hitting the big strokes was difficult.

After posting a total that included "10–15 extra" runs on a pitch that was hard to bat, India were already feeling confident. Axar reasoned that since the bats would attack him early on, it would be best to avoid doing anything "extraordinary" and force the batsmen to try and do different things, which might work to his advantage.

When Axar delivered his opening ball, which was from around the wicket to England captain Jos Butter, he attempted a reverse sweep but instead popped the ball to wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant.

After thereafter, Axar dismissed Moeen Ali and Jonny Bairstow in back-to-back overs to depart England at 46 for 4, finishing with a stifling 3 for 23, which won him Player-of-the-Match.

Laughing, Axar added, "I hadn't really planned to get a wicket on the first ball," during the news conference. "I tried to think of ways to place the ball in the correct spots. It goes without saying that you want to start and finish strong with the first and last ball while playing knockouts.

"In the powerplay, the strategy was standard. Bowling in the powerplay is difficult, but if you know that the wicket is helping you, you can bowl with greater ease. So, without thinking too much or doing anything special, I figured that the more basic my bowling was, the simpler it would be for me. It's not an easy pitch [for batting], as we discussed in the dressing room, and I anticipated the batter would rush at me. The ball wasn't coming on the bat well, so it wasn't going to be simple to hit me off the back foot or to knock me down the ground.

As per my plan, I wanted to create difficulties for them and make them consider playing other shots, which is exactly what happened with the first ball.We knew we could stop 170, I believe, since it was a par score. The way the wicket was acting, and after he completed batting, Rohit bhai commented that it was really hard to smash huge strokes since the odd ball was spinning, remaining low, and even skidding. We believed that 150–160 was a pretty respectable score that we could have held onto. Thus, we knew we had ten to fifteen runs left over until we reached 170."

Axar saw that Chris Jordan and Jofra Archer were picking up pace as he batted at No. 8 for six balls in the final overs. Despite this, he managed to hit a six off one of Jordan's slower deliveries.

About the notes he wrote in his head while hitting, Axar remarked, "Obviously, I got a clue from that as to what to do and what not to." "It would have been simple for them if we had given pace. Bowling at nice spots was perfect. When I've pitched the ball at a decent length, nobody has struck me.

I made an effort to pitch the ball on a solid length and line on the powerplay because it was crucial."

At 91.5 km/h, his initial delivery to Buttler wasn't that fast. Even when he bowled a bit faster—94.5 km/h—to Bairstow, he remained accurate by pitching the ball around off stump; the ball skidded on with a low bounce, knocking over the off stump. He had given up just 11 runs in his opening two overs, so his third wicket came about as a result of both good fortune and hard work.

After seven overs, England were 46 for 3, and Moeen was on 8 from 9 balls when he attempted to clip an Axar delivery off his pads and raced ahead for what he believed to be a single. However, as Moeen went out of the crease, the ball simply bounced off his pad towards Pant, who ripped the bails off.

while asked if England batsmen worried more about facing spinners than other teams, Axar responded, "It's also about pressure," adding that while chasing, you know that the pitch is assisting the bowlers under that situation. Thus, they must be considering making the most money out of the powerplay as an opener or anybody in the top four.

That's probably what they were considering, but it didn't work out.Big strokes, sweeps, and reverse sweeps were challenging to execute, in my opinion, since some balls were staying low on the pitch and making it tough to connect. It casts uncertainty on the batsman's mind that he will be smacked on the pad if he sweeps and the ball stays low. Thus, it relies on the length and line you bowl. The majority of our spinners maintained it stump to stump, making it quite challenging to do the sweeps and reverse sweeps.

"Then, the batsmen think of hitting straight as an option but we had seen videos of their batsmen that they play a lot on the back foot, but on this kind of pitch you have to come on the front foot and play your shots."