MUMBAI: If shifting from India to New Zealand saw him fall in love with cricket, switching to spin from fast bowling paved the way for Ajaz Patel's entry into the game's top-flight.
The shift and switch both worked wonders as he became only the third bowler in Test cricket's 144-year-long history to take all 10 wickets in an innings.
A fast bowler growing up, the late bloomer's talents became apparent only after he started bowling spin.
Standing at 5 feet 6 inches, he realised he wasn't quite going to make it as a pacer, which explained the switch to spin in his 20s, years after his parents emigrated to New Zealand.
When the Patels left their house in the city's Jogeshwari area for New Zealand in 1996, he was only eight years old.
In the new environs, he fell in love with the game and worked towards earning a name for himself.
"Simply unreal".
Former India coach Ravi Shastri best summed up Ajaz's 10-wicket haul while representing New Zealand against his native country in the second Test at his birth place.
By picking all 10 wickets, the Mumbai-born Ajaz on Saturday joined Jim Laker and Anil Kumble.
He also surpassed the great Richard Hadlee to record the best figures by a New Zealand bowler.
Hadlee had taken nine for 52 versus Australia back in 1985.
The rise to prominence is nothing short of spectacular for the man, who has had no qualms admitting that his "hands were shaking" with nervousness when he was first handed the ball in Test cricket.
The cricket fraternity was quick to laud the incredible achievement of the 33-year-old left-arm spinner, and so were his family members who still live in Jogeshwari.
Ajaz's family owns a house in Jogeshwari.
His mother used to teach at a school near Oshiwara, while his father was in the refrigeration business.
"It's a proud moment for the entire family. We were expecting a good performance but this is exceptional. It's sad that I couldn't be at the ground to watch this feat live.
I had work and had to come to office and I watched in on TV," Owais Patel, Ajaz's elder cousin who lives here, told PTI.
"Our families are very close and only last year, we had visited them in New Zealand. I have spoken to him after he landed in Mumbai. Still not sure but plan to meet him after the Test match," he added.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Ajaz's family would often spend their holidays in India.
Thanks to his former Kiwi teammate and Mumbai Indians pacer Mitchell McClenaghan, he would would often come to watch the team's Indian Premier League matches at the Wankhede Stadium and has also bowled to them on a few occasions.
Ajaz extracted sharp turn and bounce from the pitch and carried the New Zealand bowling on his shoulders to restrict the home team's first innings total to 325.
As he went about running through the Indian batting line-up with his guile, turn and accuracy, some of his family members were cheering for him from the stands.
Long before he got to savour his biggest moment in the game, it was former New Zealand spinner Dipak Patel, who encouraged him to leave pace and take up spin bowling.
Dipak was then the coach of the New Zealand U-19 team.
In New Zealand, Ajaz began his career with Auckland, but it was only after he made a move to Central Districts that the player started to showcase his skills.
Ajaz played for Auckland A without much success, and then, moved to Central Districts, where he was fast tracked into first class cricket and made his debut in 2012.
He made his T20 debut also in the same year but had to wait for three more years to play 50-over cricket.
His rise in international cricket was built on success at the domestic level.
Ajaz kept on taking wickets consistently and he was finally rewarded with a New Zealand call-up in 2018 after 16 five-fors and three 10-wicket hauls.
It came after a lot of hard work and intense competition from the likes of the already established Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi.
But once he found his footing in the top-flight, he was on his way.
The Mumbai-born 34-year-old left-arm spinner was elated for his exceptional show as he became only the third bowler in Test history to return a 10-for in an innings after Jim Laker (1956) and Anil Kumble (1999) and that too in the city of his birth.
"Personally, it's one of the greatest cricketing days of my life and it probably will always be," Patel said at the end of the day .
"From the team's perspective, we put ourselves in a tough position. We have to front up tomorrow and work as hard as possible and see if we can turn the game around or eke out something special," Patel admitted.
It will still take some time to sink in and before he could savour it, the Indian bowlers devoured on their batters.
So has it sunk in yet? "Not really," he said with a smile.
"After I came off the field, things happened too quickly. These things don't sink in until later. It's brilliant for me, my family and my wife. You spend a lot of time away from home as a cricketer and I'm just grateful to God for this occasion. It's a very special for me."
He felt humbled by Kumble's tweet and was grinning from ear to ear.
"Yeah, I remember his ten-for. I have seen highlights of that game plenty of times. Very illustrious group to be a part of. Great to see his message and his kind words. Humbled and fortunate to be in that company."
So did at any point 10-for cross his mind during the early stages of the Indian innings? "No, not quite. I knew there was work to do. I wanted to get up on the honours board. I told myself yesterday that my name was going to be on the honours board but for it to happen was special."
There was an entire gamut of emotions that he felt when Rachin Ravindra went underneath the aerial ball at mid-on.
"It was a nervous time. We backed Rachin to take it but the ball wobbled and we were all nervous."
"I told Neil Wagner, during drinks, that I was more nervous now than I was all game. We don't have these moments as cricketers often. It was special that it came in Mumbai," he sounded emotional, as his extended family still stays in Mumbai suburb Jogeshwari.
For Patel, it's the "beauty of Test cricket" that on a day he got the best figures for a New Zealand bowler, his team were shot out for just 62.
"Things can flip and one session can change the game. But we're still in the game and the second innings is still left."
"It's about looking forward to tomorrow and doing the right things again. I have a lot of messages to respond to but I'll leave it for the quarantine on my way back home," he said.
He was all praise for Mayank Agarwal and his splendid innings of 150 on a track where there is both turn and bounce.
"Mayank played very well. That was a very special innings. He got half the runs in the innings. Getting 150 on that wicket was not easy. My challenge was to keep it tight, I have to make sure I bowl the right balls consistently. He played a special knock. It was cool for me to finally get him."
Unlike Javagal Srinath who bowled wides to facilitate Kumble's 10th wicket (Wasim Akram), Patel said that he had no such discussions with any of his teammates and would have been happy with even nine wickets.
"No talk of that sort. It doesn't matter who gets the wickets. I would have been happy had I got nine and someone else took one. It was really about making sure we did our job."
He doesn't play white ball games for New Zealand but this 10-for will certainly make him popular with the Indian audience considering that his team is always held in high esteem.
Can this translate into an IPL contract? Patel doesn't want to look that far.
"Oh, if I could get a contract, I would be lucky. But I haven't looked that far ahead. Playing for New Zealand is all I can think of doing. Whatever happens later on, we can worry about it later," he concluded.