Stand-in captain Rishabh Pant faced the flak from fans and experts for his strategy of promoting Axar Patel ahead of Dinesh Karthik in the batting order during the 2nd T20I against South Africa on Sunday in Cuttack.
The hosts were struggling to get going and were reduced to 112/6 when Axar Patel got out in the 17th over as it was mainly due to the veteran Karthik’s pyrotechnics while batting at No 7 that they could get post a respectable 148/6.
Following the four-wicket loss to the Proteas in the game, batsman Shreyas Iyer defended the move, saying the need of the hour was to ‘rotate strike’. While addressing a post-match presser, he said the team didn’t require someone to go and hit from ball one, hence they sent Axar in.
“It’s something we had strategised earlier as well. We had seven overs left when Axar went in, and he’s someone who can take the singles and keep rotating the strike,” Shreyas said at the post-match media interaction on Sunday.
“Also, at that point in time, we didn’t require someone to go in and start hitting from ball one. DK can obviously do that, but he has been a really good asset for us after 15 overs, where he can go in and start hitting a straightaway,” he added.
Promoted at No 6, Axar scored 10 off 11 balls before being cleaned up by Anrich Nortje, while Karthik slammed an unbeaten 30 from 21 balls. Shreyas argued that even Karthik had struggled to get his timing right like many others on the day on a two-paced wicket.
“Even he (Karthik) was finding it a little bit difficult at the start. The wicket played a huge role in this game. And as for that strategy, we can and we will be going with it in the next matches as well,” Shreyas said.
As a matter of fact, Karthik took 15 balls to score eight runs but then he broke free in the next six, smashing two sixes and two fours.
In hindsight, it may have felt that India could have notched 160-plus had the in-form Karthik got more time in the middle. Shreyas however agreed that they fell short by about 12 runs in the end.
“If I look back, I think 160 would have been a really good score on this wicket to put them under a little bit of pressure. But we were like 12 runs short,” he added.
(With PTI Inputs)
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