Former Australian skipper Aaron Finch questioned Axar Patel’s leadership after Delhi Capitals suffered a 47-run loss against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad, on Tuesday.
Finch slammed Patel for underutilizing himself and Kuldeep Yadav against the Orange Army. Patel and Kuldeep bowled two overs apiece whereas part-time spinner Nitish Rana bowled his full quota of four overs.
DC’s main spinners – Patel and Kuldeep – returned with combined figures of 1-53 in four overs whereas Rana conceded 55 runs in his four overs.
Abhishek Sharma scored a stunning knock of 135 runs off just 68 balls, including 10 fours and as many sixes, and took DC bowlers to the cleaners as SRH posted 242 runs on the board.
Aaron Finch said on ESPNCricinfo, “We’ve been sitting there scratching our heads, haven’t we? Your two Indian premier spin bowlers, Axar Patel, the skipper, Kuldeep Yadav, they bowled four overs between them. A part-time offspinner in Nitish Rana has wheeled out four overs. To me that makes no sense.”
“It’s the responsibility of your captain, your senior player, your retained player, your best bowler, Indian bowler, he’s one of your core bowlers in the Indian cricket team. That’s no small bit. He’s a double World Cup winner. So the fact that he doesn’t trust himself to execute under pressure and to defend himself against any left-handers… To me that says more about his attitude towards it than anything else,” the 39-year-old added.
On the other hand, former South African skipper Faf du Plessis also questioned Axar Patel’s tactics of bowling Nitish Rana’s full overs ahead of himself.
“We wouldn’t have gone why are you bowling yourself ahead of Rana. The obvious thing is that Axar would have thought lefties at the crease, I’ve bowled my two overs. But the point is he got the lefty out, he got Head out. That was one thing.
“The next part of it is you didn’t go to someone else that your impact player that came on and bowled, a fast bowler that came on the field. He gave those overs to [Rana] – how many times in his career in the IPL has he bowled four overs in T20 cricket? Never?
Delhi Capitals will next take on Punjab Kings at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi, on Saturday.
