As India reached New Chandigarh for the second T20I against South Africa, the Proteas set a huge target for the Indians. The Indian head coach took an unconventional decision to promote Axar Patel up the batting order, a strategy that once again failed.
India started the T20 series against South Africa with an impressive 100-run win in Cuttack. After the win, they reached New Chandigarh for the second T20I without any changes in the XI. Kuldeep Yadav was once again not given a place in the playing eleven.
After this the South African team entered the game with a dominant performance. Quinton de Kock led the South African innings with a brilliant start and the innings ended with an extraordinary finish from Donovan Ferreira.
As India set out to chase a mammoth target of 214 and lost the wicket of Shubman Gill early in the innings, Gautam Gambhir looked to make an extraordinary splash in the Indian middle-order as he promoted all-rounder Axar Patel to the upper order.
Aakash Chopra also felt that Axar Patel’s promotion seemed controversial, and as a result, Shivam Dubey was not given enough time to make any significant impact.
“I’m trying to get my head around the move to promote Axar at 3pm tomorrow.
One can understand if India were 25/3 and you wanted to prevent the collapse. But chasing 214 at 3 o’clock?” Aakash Chopra said.
Gautam Gambhir is well known for his strange antics, his move seemed foolish. Since the match conditions required quick scoring, and with Abhishek Sharma at the crease, sending in a second left-handed batsman also did not make the combination of right-handed and left-handed batsmen work.
,It was also not in line with the left-right strategy. Hitting the spinners also did not suit his strengths. As a result, while he played 21 balls…Dubey departed with only 13 balls remaining,” he said.
Trying to find out about the move to promote Axar tomorrow at 3 pm.
One can understand that India was 25/3 and you wanted to prevent the collapse. But chasing 214 at 3? It was also not in line with the left-right strategy. He didn’t use his strength to hit the spinners…– Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) 12 December 2025
Shivam Dubey did not get a chance to free his hand
The game needed batsmen like Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dubey to bat deep into the innings and utilize the conditions to chase huge scores. However, the left-handed all-rounder struggled to keep his eyes on the ball as he was out on the very second ball.
Shivam Dubey landed at number three. 8 runs, just two overs left. As Dubey tried to swing hard at Bartman, his off stump flew off the ground. Dube could not have let him settle, and Chopra suggests that promoting Dube up the batting order instead would have affected the result.
Hardik Pandya’s struggle proved to be a game changer for India.
Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya returned to the game after a long break. The Indian all-rounder scored easily in the last game in Cuttack when India was struggling with the bat. But this time he failed to make the same impact while chasing the target.
Rather, Pandya struggled with a low strike rate for the first 12 balls; He was batting with a strike rate of 50. Even after his dismissal, he was well below the 100 mark in the strike rate column, and that hurt India’s chase.
Not only were they disappointed with their most prominent finisher, but they also missed many balls which could have come in handy for players like Jitesh Sharma and Shivam Dubey.
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