Is captaincy impacting Axar Patel’s form in IPL 2025? Halfway through and Axar has scalped just 1 wicket in 23 overs, averaging a staggering 207.00. Before this IPL, Axar averaged 27.90 and had an economy rate of 7.06. However, despite the pitches aiding bowlers, Axar has been poor with the ball. He hasn’t had the luck in terms of wickets. While he has defended runs in some matches, he hasn’t had got the wickets to help his team. However, with Delhi Capitals winning five out of seven matches, his captaincy is shielding Axar from his poor bowling.
On Tuesday, in the LSG vs DC match, he continued his dry run, returning for 0/29 in four overs, he bowled on the trot. In Lucknow, where it wasn’t as easy to hit strokes, Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram added 87 runs in the first 10 overs. Axar could not stop the singles, nor could he stop the boundaries. He bowled three overs in the powerplay, for the first time in his T20 career.
Axar Patel in IPL 2025
| Overs | Runs | Wkts | Econ | Dots | Opposition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.0 | 18 | 0 | 6.00 | 7 | v LSG |
| 4.0 | 43 | 0 | 10.75 | 7 | v SRH |
| 1.0 | 5 | 0 | 5.00 | 1 | v CSK |
| 4.0 | 52 | 0 | 13.00 | 8 | v RCB |
| 2.0 | 19 | 0 | 9.50 | 4 | v MI |
| 3.0 | 23 | 1 | 7.66 | 9 | v RR |
| 2.0 | 18 | 0 | 9.00 | 3 | v GT |
| 4.0 | 29 | 0 | 7.25 | 6 | v LSG |
| 23.0 | 207 | 1 | 9.00 | 45 | — |
Great captaincy, poor bowling
There is a stark contrast in his pre-captaincy bowling and now. Until IPL 2024, Axar bagged 123 wickets and had a bowling economy of just 7.34. Even his T20I bowling has been pretty decent, bagging 20 wickets in 16 T20Is since 2024.
But somewhere, captaincy is getting the better of his bowling. As Vipraj Nigam and Kuldeep Yadav continue to bowl brilliant spells apart from Mitchell Starc with his sheering pace, Delhi Capitals are in good hands. But of all three fail and Axar doesn’t turn up with the ball, DC could find it difficult in the latter stages of IPL 2025.
However, questions will be asked if DC’s form takes a dip and they hit a rut with IPL 2025 playoffs approaching,
