Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has questioned Delhi Capitals skipper Axar Patel’s captaincy in the Delhi Capitals’ (DC) IPL 2025 defeat against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). He also wondered why Axar didn’t give the penultimate over to Mitchell Starc during RCB’s chase as well. However, DC set RCB a 163-run target, which RCB achieved the target with six wickets and nine deliveries to spare.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, he said, “A question remained in my mind for sure. Sir Axar Patel, what will you do with Mitchell Starc’s over? I am not saying the match would have changed. Abishek Porel dropped a catch earlier. If he had taken the catch, the match might have changed. After that, who will you bowl when 18 runs are required in two overs? Obviously, while defending, the 19th over is more important than the 20th, but you didn’t get Starc to bowl. That was a blunder in capital letters. Dushmantha Chameera also bowled well. His one over was also left. I felt it was a big mistake by Axar Patel.”

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However, Aakash Chopra also praised Krunal Pandya for scoring a quickfire half-century during RCB’s chase in their IPL 2025 away game
against DC as well. He also praised Virat Kohli for his steady fifty as well.

“The start was slightly bad, and when Rajat (Patidar) got run out, one wondered what was going to happen. However, Krunal Pandya came there. He has only two half-centuries in the IPL. Suresh (Raina) was saying that he scored a half-century after 3000 days, but it was so timely and came in such incredible fashion,” he said. “The way he batted, he was stellar in capital letters. He hit three sixes, two against Mukesh Kumar and one against Kuldeep Yadav, when it seemed like the match was hanging in the balance, and that was game, set and match.”

“At the other end, Virat Kohli had to do what Virat Kohli does. He is the chase master because he dissects the run chase. Like a computer, he reads how fast he needs to run and who to hit and when. We saw that job from Virat Kohli’s bat,” Aakash Chopra concluded.