‘Don’t care if de Kock is batting, you can’t give only 2 overs to your best bowler Axar’: Experts slam Pant’s captaincy

Rishabh Pant‘s captaincy was under the scanner after Lucknow Super Giants beat Delhi Capitals by 5 wickets to register a hat-trick of victories in IPL 2022. Pant’s decision to bowl one of DC’s best spinners Axar Patel for only two overs in the LSG chase on Thursday at the Dy Patil Stadium, where despite the dew, the fingers spinners were able to get a good purchase, surprised the cricket experts.

Former Kolkata Knight Riders team director Joy Bhattacharjya said the thought of not bowling a left-arm spinner just because a left-hander is batting in the middle, doesn’t make any sense, especially when the spinner is one of your best bowlers.

“It was an absolutely perplexing game. This reminds me of an Andrei Tarkovsky film where after three and a half hours you are supposed to understand but you end up getting more confused.

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“The decisions taken today as far as batting order is concerned, I did not understand. Then decisions taken while bowling, I did not understand. I don’t care how much form a left-hander like de Kock is in. You cannot have your best bowler Axar Patel bowl only two overs, I can’t understand how this happened,” Bhattacharjya told Cricbuzz.

LSG opener De Kock scored a superb 80 off 52 balls to guide his side to victory in the tricky 150-run chase. Keeping the match-up theory in mind, Pant decided not to bowl Axar Patel when de Kock was at the crease.

The left-arm spinner ended up bowling only two overs in the match.

“There are a lot of tricks that have been missed here and I’m frankly trying to understand this European school of thought. Look at the bowling, it’s the strangest of bowling cards you will see,” Bhattacharjya added.

Former Australia women’s cricketer Lisa Sthalekar pointed out the delay in bringing Mustafizur Rahman back into the attack.

“They waited too long to get Mustafizur back into the attack. We saw how effective he was with those little off-cutters he bowls into the pitch. It was almost like they thought they would use him at the backend but you’ve gotta get to that stage first. So, yeah, lot of missed opportunities there,” Sthalekar said in the same video.

“Hopefully, the coaching staff of DC will get to Rishabh Pant and say ‘this is what you did, and this is where you can improve’,” she added.