India head coach Gautam Gambhir declared batting orders in white-ball cricket are ‘highly overrated’. Captain Suryakumar Yadav says nobody in his T20I squad has a fixed spot in the batting order except for the openers. These aren’t empty claims to create headlines. The Indian team has been consistently putting them into practice. Mullanpur T20I was just the latest example when Axar Patel, who bats in the lower middle-order, was promoted to the No. 3 spot in a chase of 214 against South Africa.

Axar managed run-a-ball 21 and India were bowled out for 162.

This is not to suggest that this move alone contributed to the record 51-run defeat, but it surely played a role as suggested by former India batter Robin Uthappa, who cannot fathom why the current world champions sent a ‘pinch-hitter’ a

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