India’s Asia Cup 2022 campaign suffered a big jolt after all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja was ruled out of the tournament with a knee injury.
Axar Patel was named as Jadeja's replacement for the tournament.
The Men in Blue now face Pakistan for the second time in the competition in their first Super 4 game on September 4 (Sunday).
Former India pacer Irfan Pathan said that Axar Patel was a good replacement, but couldn't be used as a floater like Jadeja in the batting order.
"Axar Patel is the absolutely correct like-to-like replacement. The only problem is that Jadeja had become such a fantastic batter that you could have batted him up the order, you might not be able to do that with Axar," he said in an interaction with Star Sports.
The southpaw also hoped that Jadeja returns to the Indian team as soon as possible.
"You will get good bowling and fielding, there is no problem about that, but there will definitely be some issues regarding that change you could have done in the batting. So we hope that Ravindra Jadeja comes back after getting fit as soon as possible," Irfan Pathan added.
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