After Axar Patel won the T20 World Cup with India in 2024, his homecoming offered a rare glimpse into the cricketer whose public profile tends to exist in inverse proportion to his performances. The Kheda District Cricket Association decided to host a grand felicitation for him with celebrations expected to pour onto the streets of Nadiad. Over 40,000 people were likely to turn up. Yet the plan was scuppered.

"When Axar found out about our plans, he just didn't come back home," recalls Manish Desai, the president of Kheda District Cricket Association. "He gets awkward when we try to make him feel special. But if he didn't turn up, I would've been left embarrassed.

"So I called him and requested him not to leave me red-faced. He said he wouldn't mind the felicitation if it was limited to a gathering with kids who play cricket. So we called all the kids of the academy and had a small function where they asked him questions, and he regaled them for a couple of hours."

Axar's humility is echoed by his home town, as well as the clarity he has about where home is. When he walks into the vast Narendra Modi Stadium to play the Netherlands on Wednesday, as the vice captain of the Indian team, some may call it his maiden World Cup game at his home ground.

Yet Axar is particular that Ahmedabad is not his home. It's a city that he has long resisted, despite attempts to convince him of the better 'cricketing opportunities' and more perks on offer.

Other players who have entered the big time have decided that only a big city could hold the size of their ambitions, but Axar is different. For him, home is Nadiad. Around 60 kms from Ahmedabad is where his people and his heart lie. No temptation, after all, has been more appealing than the prospect of being around his childhood friends and family.