Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan believes that the Indian team's middle-order is an area of concern for the side after the middle-order collapsed in the third and final T20I against New Zealand.
On Sunday, November 21, Rohit Sharma (56) and Ishan Kishan (29) gave Team India a good start by adding 69 runs in 38 deliveries, but the hosts were yet again let down by the middle-order, as only 51 runs off 45 balls came from No. 4 to 7 batters against New Zealand in Kolkata.
However, unexpected cameos from Harshal Patel (18) at 8 and Deepak Chahar (21) at 9 helped India to post 184/7 on the board and the hosts successfully defended the total by restricting the Black Caps to 111 in 17.2 overs to win the game by 73 runs and the series with a 3-0 margin on Sunday.
In the final encounter, Suryakumar Yadav was out for a duck after facing four balls at number three, while at number four, Rishabh Pant surrendered for just four runs off six balls in Kolkata.
Reacting to the duo’s show in the final T20I, Pathan has stressed that Suryakumar is a "high risk, high reward player," as he didn’t pay much attention to his four-ball duck, but was critical of Pant’s performance, saying the left-hander should have taken more time to settle in.
The former all-rounder further said that Pant needs to keep working on his batting against the spinners while hailing Suryakumar as a fantastic player.
Pathan said in a conversation with Star Sports: “Look in terms of Rishabh's batting, the kind of shot he played, he needs to keep working on his batting especially against spinners. Since maybe 2020, he has gone out to spinners playing the slog sweep about six or seven times which is quite high.”
The commentator signed off by saying, “He (Pant) needs to just get better at it. He could have taken a bit more time as well. And look when I talk about Suryakumar Yadav, I always believe he's a fantastic player, but he's a high risk, high reward kind of player.”
