India, June 29 -- India's two-match T20I series against Ireland did not merely expose a batting failure. It exposed a phase-specific weakness. The problem was not that India were blown away in the powerplay, nor that the lower order had no fight. The issue was sharper: once the field spread and the game entered overs 7 to 15, India did not have a batter who could take ownership of the innings.

That is why Rajat Patidar enters the discussion.

Not as a fashionable name. Not as another IPL performer being forced into an India debate. But as a batter whose recent data directly answers the weakness Ireland dragged into the open - India's inability to control, accelerate and break the game open in the middle overs.

Across the two T20Is again...