India’s defeat in the second of the five-match India vs South Africa T20I series has raised questions over some of the tactics and selections deployed by captain Suryakumar Yadav and head coach Gautam Gambhir.
Despite India winning all their T20I series since Suryakumar and Gambhir became the captain-coach pair last year, issues have now cropped up in the selected personnel and those making their plans.
While Rinku Singh’s omission from the squad for the IND vs SA T20I series is swept under the carpet, Shubman Gill’s place in the T20I side as an opener, with Sanju Samson now consigned to the bench, and vice-captain is untenable. To make matters worse, Suryakumar himself is out of form, averaging only 13.35 since November 2024.
The lack of role clarity in the batting order—Gambhir and Suryakumar have often reiterated the demand for flexibility in the batting order for all batsmen except the openers—has confounded the fans. Gambhir and Suryakumar took this batting flexibility to another bizarre level in the IND vs SA T20I in Mullanpur by sending Axar Patel at No. 3.
Axar has been used as a spin disrupter in India’s ODI and T20I teams in the past couple of years. But this time, he was sent in the first over to face the Protea pace attack.
As expected, not only did Axar fail to make an impact, but he in fact had a negative impact on the scorecard, managing 21 runs off 21 balls when India were tasked to go after the target of 214. India would have better utilized Axar’s hitting ability against spinners when left-arm spinner George Linde bowled after the powerplay. But Axar didn’t get to face a single ball from Linde.
Why was Axar Patel promoted to No. 3? Suryakumar Yadav gives bizarre reason
In the post-match presentation, Suryakumar explained the reason for Axar’s promotion to No. 3 in Mullanpur, saying, “We’ve seen Axar bat really well in the longer format, and we wanted him to bat the same way today as well, but [it was] unfortunate.”
This is quite a bizarre reason to promote someone who had never batted in that spot in his entire 81-match T20I career before. Not sure if the “longer format” Suryakumar referred to here is ODI or Test, but nonetheless, it’s a classic Gambhir syndrome of mixing formats.
It made even less sense to send Axar—and not Suryakumar or Tilak Varma, who hammered twin centuries last year from No. 3—in the one-drop position because the dismissed opener was the right-handed Gill and not the left-handed Abhishek Sharma.
Suryakumar got in at No. 4, hit one boundary, and was dismissed off the fourth ball he faced. In his last 20 T20I innings, the India T20I skipper has played more than 20 balls only twice.
The IND vs SA 3rd T20I will be hosted in Dharamsala on Sunday.
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