Having marked just his seventeenth Birthday, on November 1 last, Mihir Patel decided that his debut performances for Canada at this year’s South Africa hosted 2020 ICC U19 Cricket World Cup would be a fitting occasion for further celebration of such an auspicious milestone. So said, so done, as Patel proceeded to accumulate an aggregate 137 runs from five innings batted to emerge as Canada’s highest run-scorer for the Tournament. Patel’s tally included a top score of 90 that was made against the United Arab Emirates. His Tournament aggregate was also punctuated by 16 fours!
Born on November 1, 2002, in Scarborough, Ontario, Mihir Patel was already playing cricket with his Dad by age 4, as a very early expression of his passion for the sport! By the time he’d reached 8 that ever-growing passion had progressed to his registration at the Toronto Cricket Academy.
Since then Patel’s rapidly developing career as a Canadian Youth cricketer has evolved further to an involvement with the Actionzone Cricket Academy and the Centurions Cricket Club, for which he now plays regularly in the Toronto & District Cricket League. The Actionzone Cricket Academy is the brainchild of former Canadian National Senior Player, Sanjay Thuraisingam who along with his fellow resident Coach India-Born Balaji Rao has taken Patel under their wings as their joint prodigy!
Blessed as he has been by the coaching insights of Rao and Thursaisingam, Mihir Patel has been playing for Cricket Ontario since he was 13. He scored first Senior Division hundred at age of 15, against the rival Ontario Cricket Academy. Not surprisingly he was actually the youngest player in Canada’s squad for this year’s 2020 ICC U19 Cricket World Cup.
Patel’s elevation to national selection, as a member of Canada’s 2020 U19 World Cup Squad, had been heavily influenced by his highly commendable performances during the 2019 T&DCA Premier Division Season. As still just a sixteen-year-old as he was back then, Patel scored 405 runs from 10 innings batted to end the Season with an ultra-impressive 67.5 batting average.
Patel’s 2019 T&DCA Premier Division run tally had also included two centuries, one of which was his Season highest score of 103, and 3 fifties. Overall in all T&DCA 2019 Senior Matches, Patel scored 660 runs from 16 innings at a 55.0 average. His knocks included 2 hundreds and 5 fifties.
When and if the 2020 Canadian domestic cricket Season eventually gets underway, Mihir Patel has set as his primary objectives producing consistently outstanding performances and playing Senior Division matches as regularly as possible. He also has hopes of being drafted by one of the GT20 Franchises as an initial step towards eventual selection to the Canadian National Senior Team. In order to fulfill any of those lofty objectives, Patel fully appreciates that he will also need to continue working on my fitness as well as the overall further improvement of his skills as an emerging cricketer.
Having made his mark with as impressive a debut as he had at this year’s ICC U19 World Cup, Mihir Patel should now be looking forward to his continuing participation as a more senior player in next year’s edition of the Tournament. In the interim, he will also be hoping that the prevailing COVID19 restrictions will be sufficiently lifted as to allow him to enjoy an even more outstanding 2020 T&DCA Premier Division and Senior matches Season. An impressively developing career that will definitively be “One To Watch!”
Mihir Patel: One To Watch!
