Delhi Capitals walked off the field in Hyderabad with an odd statistic staring them in the face – their two frontline spinners, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav, sent down just four overs between them while a part-timer, Nitish Rana, completed his full quota. Sunrisers ran up 266 for 5, powered by Abhishek Sharma’s unbeaten 135, and the Capitals never caught up.
Aaron Finch could not quite fathom the decision-making. Speaking on ESPNcricinfo’s Time Out show he said, “We’ve been sitting there scratching our heads, haven’t we? Your two Indian premier spin bowlers, Axar Patel, the skipper [2-0-23-1], Kuldeep Yadav [2-0-30-0], they bowled four overs between them. A part-time offspinner in Nitish Rana has wheeled out four overs. To me that makes no sense.”
The Capitals’ logic, as far as one could tell, was to keep the ball turning away from the left-hand opening pair of Abhishek and Travis Head. Rana’s off-spin theoretically did that. The snag: Abhishek batted through, and once Head fell, Heinrich Klaasen – another left-hand match-up Axar might have fancied – arrived. Still, the captain stayed on the leash.
Finch, while accepting the tactical puzzle, felt the skipper had to take the plunge. “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 – as soon as a left-hander walks to the crease, not for me today, thanks. To me that says more about his attitude towards it than anything else.”
A glance at the head-to-head backs Finch up. Before Tuesday Axar had delivered only eight balls to Abhishek in the IPL – yet those eight cost six runs and twice brought the opener’s wicket. That sample is tiny, but it is still a winning matchup.
Finch continued, “He’s got a great defensive mindset with the ball in hand too. He’s not somebody that you know, if he’s under pressure, he’ll float one up in the slot. He defends himself. He changes angles. He uses his range, his height to his advantage as well. So even when you’re thinking defensive, that’s attacking against Abhishek Sharma when he’s in a mood like that. You bowl a couple of decent balls and you know that something will happen.”
Post-match, Axar said the bowlers had a plan but failed to execute it. His own two overs came in the middle phase; both disappeared quickly. Finch heard those comments and bristled. “I’m looking at those comments saying, well hang on, boss, you had the chance as well but you’re not willing to stand up at the moment either. So I’m no issue with mis-execution. A bowler can mis-execute for a game, for a couple of games. If their planning and their preparation and their thought process is right, I’ve no issues whatsoever with that. Because inevitably you can’t bowl 24 perfect balls. You can’t get your decision-making right all the time.”
Faf du Plessis, also on the panel, felt the criticism would have been muted had Axar simply tried and failed. “we wouldn’t have such a bold stand if he had bowled that over and he went for 20. We wouldn’t have gone why are you bowling yourself ahead of Rana.”
The larger point, du Plessis hinted, is trust: captains must back their strengths even if the match-ups look awkward on paper. Many IPL skippers, he noted, have gone the other way this season, bowling themselves or their gun spinners despite a theoretical disadvantage and reaping wickets by sticking to what they do best.
Capitals coach Ricky Ponting has often praised Axar’s game-sense, so it will be interesting to see whether this was a one-off blip or the start of a cautious trend. Delhi’s next fixture is in Chennai – traditionally slow, sometimes ragged, almost always helpful for spin. If the skipper again holds himself back there, the noise will only grow louder, even if the man making it is as calm as Axar usually sounds.
