The witty all-rounder Axar Patel would be pumped up after making it to the ODI WC 2023 squad. Axar Patel‘s inclusion has raised a lot of eye brows as the left-arm off-spinner has come into the side in place of the sly spinner Yuzvendra Chahal who was quite unfortunate to miss out from the main squad.
Axar Patel along with Ravindra Jadeja and Shardul Thakur can bolster India’s lower middle order and chase any big target on the board. Axar Patel can also be used as a pinch hitter against the spinners in the middle overs phase as the spinner has got a wide range of shots that can surprise the opposition.
I feel there was a toss-up between Axar Patel & Yuzvendra Chahal- Aakash Chopra
Aakash Chopra was seen speaking on his YouTube channel and questioned the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel and said that do they actually pick bowlers on the basis of their batting. Aakash Chopra said that the side already has the services of Ravindra Jadeja who is in good form and the side doesn’t need an extra all-rounder
“I feel there was a toss-up between Axar Patel and Yuzi Chahal. I understand you need batting at No. 8, if you have it it’s fine, but what do you do if you don’t have it? Do you actually pick bowlers on the basis of their batting?,” said Aakash Chopra.
“You can get depth by either having a batter at No. 8, or your top six plus Jadeja are in good form and they take responsibility and make sure that you don’t miss a No. 8 batter. I will go with the latter,” he added.
Will Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel play together- Aakash Chopra
Aakash Chopra questioned the selection of Jadeja & Axar for the marquee ODI WC 2023 and said that the duo haven’t played much cricket together. Aakash Chopra made a bold statement and said that only one of Axar Patel or Ravindra Jadeja and predicted that Axar will be sitting on the bench for way too long.
“Will Jadeja and Axar play together? They haven’t played much together thus far and will you be able to do that because whether Rohit Sharma or Hardik Pandya is the captain, the philosophy is that a left-arm finger-spinner shouldn’t be given the ball if a left-hander is batting,” said Aakash Chopra.
“So if you will be looking to see how Jadeja can bowl his 10 overs, how are you going to bowl 20 overs of left-arm spin in the middle overs? It’s not going to happen. So only one of them is going to play, which means Axar is going to be sitting on the bench for way too long,” he added.