Axar Patel and Dinesh Karthik during 2nd T20I between IND and SA
India lost the second T20 international against South Africa in Cuttack by four wickets. The team failed to deliver yet again.
The Proteas won the toss and opted to field first. India struggled with their batting and managed to put 148/6 in 20 overs. The Temba Bavuma-led team achieved the target in just 18.2 overs.
While the captaincy of Rishabh Pant was criticized a lot, India's decision of sending Axar Patel ahead of Dinesh Karthik was also considered odd. Because Dinesh has donned the role of a finisher in his previous matches.
India were 112/6 when Axar Patel got out in the 17th over and Karthik's pyrotechnics while batting at No 7 helped India to post a respectable total.
The top-order batter Shreyas Iyer defended the strategy, saying the need of the hour was to "rotate strike".
"It's something we had strategized 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.
"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 straightaway."
Promoted at No 6, Axar scored 10 off 11 balls before being cleaned up by Anrich Nortje, while Karthik smashed 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 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.
Shreyas 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.
For India, the Kolkata Knight Riders skipper was the top scorer on the day as he scored a sedate 35-ball 40 and also spent some anxious moments at the two-paced wicket. It was really tough, to be honest, I played 35 balls but I was not able to identify how the wicket was playing. I was trying to time the ball as well, I actually tried everything out there. But it was really difficult especially for the new batters to come in and get going," he added.
"On top of that the ball was staying low from one end, and from the other, there was a variable bounce as well and the ball was seaming. I could not really talk much about it since every wicket can be challenging for us. But we don't blame it for the loss," he concluded.
South Africa is currently leading by 2-0 in a five-match series, the Rishabh Pant-led team will have to win all the remaining matches if they want to seal victory in the series.
The schedule for upcoming matches is as follows:
- Visakhapatnam -14th June
- Rajkot - 17th June
- Bengaluru - 19th June
(Inputs by PTI)
