Sunil Gavaskar defends Gautam Gambhir and Shubman Gill's batting order strategy against New Zealand

Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar has backed the tactical decision made by captain Shubman Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir during the second ODI match against New Zealand. During the match, the team management promoted all-rounder Axar Patel up the batting order ahead of senior batter KL Rahul. The move did not yield immediate results as Axar failed to make a significant impact, prompting former cricketer R. Ashwin to express his dissatisfaction on social media by questioning why Axar was sent ahead of Rahul. However, Gavaskar strongly defended the team leadership's strategy. He explained that having a left-handed batter at the crease creates difficulties for opposing bowlers, who are then forced to constantly adjust their line and length to counter the right-left batting combination, thereby creating more scoring opportunities. Gavaskar noted that if Axar had managed to score a few more runs, critics would have praised the captaincy instead. He added that such bold experiments sometimes work and sometimes fail, but knowing that a reliable batter like KL Rahul was waiting to follow made the choice a low-risk experiment.

Context

In international cricket, team management frequently uses tactical promotions of left-handed batters to disrupt bowling plans, though such decisions are heavily scrutinized when they fail to produce runs. Such strategic debates are a regular part of high-level cricket analysis.