Kohli on Kuldeep’s exclusion: He is definitely going to remain in the scheme of things. He is that talented a bowler.
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After the announcement of the Indian squad for the last two Test matches of the ongoing series against England, a lot of furore was generated regarding the exclusion of Kuldeep Yadav from the side.
Been picked initially, Yadav played the second Test at Lord’s. In which proved to be an outright wrong decision by the team management, India ended up playing two spinners (Ravichandran Ashwin, the other one) on a wicket which assisted fast bowlers. India lost the match by a huge margin of an innings and 159 runs, which aided them to receive a lot of criticism for their poor decisions.
Yadav was dropped from the playing eleven in the third Test at the expense of Jasprit Bumrah. After the team for the final two Tests was announced, Yadav did not find himself even in the squad. From being chosen over Ravindra Jadeja in the playing eleven to be ignored over him sounded harsh to many people.
Kohli came out in front of the press to answer questions regarding Yadav. On being asked about whether Yadav’s bleak chances of featuring again in the Test series was a reason behind him being axed, Kohli replied, “Yes. Obviously. One reason was that for sure. You don’t want to keep someone when you know that he is not going to play alot of cricket, especially when you are in England.”
On playing two spinners in the same playing eleven, he said, “You don’t see two spinners starting out or someone starting out over (Ravichandran) Ashwin. In that point of view, we wanted him to get some game time as well because as a wrist-spinner you need to keep bowling. As any spinner or bowler, you need to keep bowling.
“For a wrist-spinner to lose control, it takes a very short span of time. He (Yadav) understood the idea as well. He wanted to get as many overs possible under his belt as he can. He is definitely going to remain in the scheme of things. He is that talented a bowler. But, at the moment, we thought this was the best thing for him.”
Going by the captain’s statement, one can imagine that Yadav would be in the thick of things for the upcoming series against West Indies.
