Parthiv Patel reveals how an unplanned airport meeting with a legendary Indian captain turned his career upside down

Parthiv Patel, who at the age of 17 years and 153 days, became Test cricket's youngest wicket-keeper in 2002, has always been a consistent performer in the domestic circuit, but he had to work double hard to make a comeback to the national side after four years, during the England series in 2016.

While grinding it out in national competitions was one of the reasons for his revival, but a chance meeting with legendary Indian batsman Sourav Ganguly, three years ago, turned the Gujarat skipper's career upside down. The stumper met his former captain at the Mumbai airport while waiting for a connecting flight to Ahmedabad.

Ganguly, asked him, “How has your season been so far?” Patel replied, “It’s been good, I got around 700 runs.” Ganguly went on to say, “This you do every season.”

Patel revealed in an interview with The Hindu, how he deduced his former skipper's comment. "What he meant was I should not be content with what I was doing, I needed to do something out of the ordinary to win back my place in the Indian squad."

Parthiv changed his schedule “I then underwent a rigorous morning-to-evening training and practice schedule in the Motera Stadium. I would do stringent fitness routines, practice my ’keeping and then work on my batting."

“I worked on my drives through mid-off and mid-on, often practising alone with the bowling machine. The results came slowly but when they did, I was a better cricketer," he added.

Patel registered scores of 42, 67*, 15 and 71 in the four innings he played against England, coming in as a substitute for injured first choice wicket-keeper, Wriddhiman Saha.