The 2022 edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is just around the corners and just a few days before the high-voltage tournament, the Indian cricket team suffered a big blow as their star all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja was ruled out of the mega-event due to a knee injury that he incurred during the Asia Cup t20 tournament in the United Arab Emirates.
Ravindra Jadeja is hailed as one of the most important players in the Indian set-up in all three formats of the game. However, due to his knee injury, he won’t be able to take part in the marque event. His absence is a huge setback for the Rohit Sharma-led side.
Meanwhile, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma has backed Jadeja’s like-for-like replacement, Axar Patel, to do the job for the team in the upcoming games. While Rohit admitted that Jadeja’s absence is a big blow for the Indian side, he is also confident that Axar Patel will do good in his absence. He said
“We needed an all-rounder there because Jadeja was a big miss for us. Axar was always a part of our plans. It was always going to be between Axar and Jadeja because they do similar things. Since Jadeja is not available, we were quite clear that Axar is the guy who can do the job for us,”
He added: “Recently, if you saw in the West Indies, he batted brilliantly, won the game single-handedly.”
Further, Rohit Sharma pointed out another interesting aspect of Axar’s bowling. He said Axar has the ability to take charge of the bowl in all three phases of the innings, which gives the team a big advantage. He said:
“He is a three-phase bowler; he bowls in the powerplay, middle-overs, and possibly an over at the death if you want to take advantage of the larger boundary,”
