Former India player Aakash Chopra has added that Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel playing together in the first ODI against England has put to rest all the speculations that the duo might not play together in the playing XI in the ODI format under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy as well. He also applauded Jadeja for achieving a huge feat in the series opener. Notably, India bowled England out for 248 after Jos Buttler opted to bat first in Nagpur on Thursday, February 6 as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “Ravindra Jadeja has reached 6000 runs and 600 wickets in international cricket. First Indian spinner to reach that far. No one else has reached there. Kapil paaji reached there but he was a fast bowler. He (Jadeja) picked up three wickets in this match as well and they were big wickets. There was a question whether he would play or not. I felt he would not play because his name was 15th in the Champions Trophy squad. We got to know a philosophy that two left-arm spinners can play together. It seemed this wouldn’t happen in Rohit’s captaincy, but that’s been put to bed now.”

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In the same video, Aakash Chopra stated that Ravindra Jadeja played well with the ball in the first ODI against England as well.

“He has still got it if there is even slight help from the pitch. He bowled extremely well. In fact, if you do man-to-man marking, Jaddu was bowling better than Axar. So Jaddu becomes your bowling all-rounder and Axar becomes your batting all-rounder. Axar was promoted in batting as a left-hander because Jacob Bethell and Adil Rashid were bowling. He did an excellent job there, and Jaddu did an excellent job in bowling. So both the left-arm spinners made important contributions for the Indian team, one with the bat and the other with the ball,” Aakash Chopra concluded.