Fact check: Was Axar Patel's cryptic message after Team India snub fake?

India have predictably named veteran offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin as a replacement for injured spin bowling allrounder Axar Patel in their 15member team for the upcoming ODI World Cup as they announced their final squad on ThursdayAxar had sustained a quadriceps tear and is not expected to recover anytime soon forcing the Ajit Agarkarled selection committee to name the 37yearold Ashwin who took four wickets in the two ODIs during the recently concluded series against Australia in the squadAxar Patel has failed to recover in time for the World Cup after sustaining a left quadriceps strain during Indias Asia Cup Super Four encounter against Bangladesh The spinbowling allrounder missed the final of the Asia Cup as a result Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has been named his replacement who was impressive on his return to ODI cricket in the recently concluded series against Australia where he picked up four wickets in two games the release further stated ICC stated in a media releasePatel who was initially named in Indias 15man provisional World Cup squad appeared to have shared a cryptic post hours after he was dropped from the squadShould have taken science instead of commerce and hired a better PR read the post The viral post that later claimed it was fake Pic XAccording to several reports Patel deleted the post shortly afterwards after having gathered a lot of detractors online However he later reposted a tweet that claimed the post was fakeHello everyoneTheres a fake screenshot doing the rounds today which is allegedly taken from akshar2026s Instagram pageHe has NOT posted any such story on his social media account so the question of deleting it doesnt arise Please treat this as an officialhellipmdash Saurabh Malhotra MalhotraSaurabh September 29 2023The writing was there on the wall when Axar failed to recover on time for the third ODI against Australia in Rajkot Ashwin travelled with the Indian team to Guwahati where they will play the first warmup game against England on Saturday September 30 Interestingly when India had named both Ravindra Jadeja and Patel in their WC squad there were talks about sameness in their bowling skillsets and it was the batting ability that got Jadejas understudy a nodAlso ReadAn opening pair like no otherAxars abilities as a bowler on good batting tracks has been limited but obviously when he couldnt get any purchase against Sri Lanka in an Asia Cup game on a Khettarama track that was closest to rankturner there were apprehensions about the choice made by the managementA parttimer like Charith Asalanka got four wickets on that very track would have made people wonder if Ashwin could be included in Indias WC squad and it needed a divine interventionAlso ReadYuvraj Singh questions ChahalSundars absence from Indias World Cup squadNo one would like to see a cricketer getting injured But Axars reported quadriceps tear possibly was His way of urging the team management to do a course correction and they finally did it by recalling Ashwin even though it was Washington Sundar who was called for the Asia Cup finalThe team knew that there was no substitute for experience Hence the talk about Ashwins utility never seemed to fade away and the fact that most of the top teams have quality lefthanders in its top and middleorderWith agency inputs