Axar Patel laughs his lungs out on being asked about his batting position; David Warner's comment is gold

When asked about his position in the post-match press conference, Axar, who is in a great mood both on and off the field, could not control his laughter.

Delhi Capital's handling of Axar Patel in IPL 2023 has been interesting, to say the least. Despite being the most experienced Indian player in the DC ranks and getting the vice-captaincy, he is yet to get a permanent batting order in the line-up. He has batted in four different positions in this IPL so far. He came out to bat at No.8 in DC's opener against LSG, batted at No.7 in the next match against GT, and was promoted to No.4 against RCB only to be brought down to No.7 in their last match against MI.

Axar Patel laughed out loud during the press conference

To Axar's credit, he has done reasonably well despite the constant shuffling of his batting position. He has scored 108 runs at a strike rate of 168.75 - his highest since making his debut in 2014. The fact that Axar has improved leaps and bounces as a batter, has definitely played a major role in it. His form with the bat at the international level has been noteworthy.

Perhaps this is the reason why it is even more frustrating to see DC not properly utilising Axar Patel. He smashed his maiden IPL fifty on Wednesday in Delhi. It was because of his whirlwind 54 off 25 balls that DC managed to put up 172 on the board which, however, was not enough as MI reached the target on the last ball.

When asked about his position in the post-match press conference, Axar, who is in a great mood both on and off the field, could not control his laughter. After laughing his lungs out, he said that the idea behind using him lower down the order is to allow the domestic Indian batters to bat against spin.

"I'm playing 10-12 overs irrespective of whether I bat higher up the order at No.7. It all looks the same to me and hence I'm not complaining much. Even when I bat at No.4, I think 10-12 overs are enough for me in a T20 game. On a serious note, we have a lot of domestic batters who can play spin really well. If I start batting higher up the order then who will play the role of a finisher? What if I get out early then we won't get whatever push we are getting at the end. So it is a difficult choice and as I said, I am anyway batting 10-12 overs," Axar said.

In 12 international matches this year, Axar has managed 444 runs in 13 innings at an average of 63.82 and a strike rate of 74.12. He has scored four half-centuries, with the best score of 84. He was India's most consistent batter in this year's Border Gavaskar Trophy against Australia at home, scoring 264 runs in five innings at an average of 88.00 with three fifties. Besides this, he has also played some useful cameos in ODIs and T20Is this year. The DC vice-captain said representing India in all three formats has given him confidence. "No, not only against Australia. I scored against Sri Lanka earlier but the main thing is that I have been playing for India in all three formats regularly, which gives me a lot of confidence."

DC captain David Warner said Axar should be batting in the top four purely because of the form he is in. "Axar should bat in the top four the way he is striking the ball," Warner said after the match.