Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has urged Axar Patel to bowl himself against left-handed batters in the Delhi Capitals’ (DC) IPL 2026 match against the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH). He added that left-arm spinners have dismissed batters multiple times in the ongoing edition of the IPL, including Washington Sundar, who got out to Mitchell Santner in the Gujarat Titans’ (GT) loss against the Mumbai Indians (MI) on Monday, April 20 as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “Delhi, I have two questions for you. Kuldeep and Axar haven’t bowled eight overs even once thus far. Axar hesitates to bowl against left-handers. Please bowl. You dismissed Devdutt Padikkal. M Siddharth dismissed Priyansh Arya and Nehal Wadhera. Left-arm spinners can dismiss left-handers. Who dismissed Washington Sundar? Mitchell Santner got him out. So, Axar, firstly, you can bowl against left-handers, not a problem, and secondly, definitely bowl your eight overs of spin.”

However, Aakash Chopra also added that the Delhi Capitals need to solve the No. 3 batter puzzle in their match against the SRH.

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“Thirdly, what will you do at No. 3? That’s a big question for you because there is a slight revolving door at No. 3 at the moment. The openers are set. They started with Nitish Rana at No. 3, and then we saw Sameer Rizvi and Karun Nair. We have seen three No. 3s in five matches. It used to happen with them in opening earlier. It’s happening with them at No. 3 now. They will have to sort it out,” he said.

“Last but not least, will you want to play Vipraj Nigam, or do you not have confidence in his bowling? That is the only flip side, or else Auqib Nabi and Mukesh Kumar are almost like-for-like bowlers. They are absolute mirror images. You generally don’t go like that in the Powerplay,” Chopra added.

“One bowler bowls less. It’s T Natarajan at times and Mukesh on other occasions. So, can you think about Vipraj because the opposition is a team of strikers? Could Vipraj Nigam actually be a player who could change the game?” he concluded.