Indian bowler Kuldeep Yadav put up a stellar show against Bangladesh in the 1st Test match in Chattogram last week. He made his first appearance in the Test after 22 months and impressed one and all with his terrific performance in the first Test match, where he picked a five-wicket haul and ended the game with eight dismissals to his name. He also scored an important 40 batting down the order to help India post a total of 404 runs in the first innings. All thanks to his amazing performance, he was awarded the Man of the Match award.
He registered impressive figures of 5/40 and 3/73 across the two innings of the first Test. However, fans and experts were left shocked after India captain KL Rahul dropped Kuldeep Yadav for the 2nd Test match in Mirpur. He was replaced by Jaydev Unadkat, who is playing in his first Test for India since 2010. Team management and stand-in skipper KL Rahul were trolled left, right and center for not including Kuldeep Yadav in the 2nd Test.
KL Rahul Revealed Why Kuldeep Yadav Was Dropped From The 2nd Test
Meanwhile, speaking at the press conference after India defeated Bangladesh in the Mirpur game, KL Rahul admitted that the Indian side missed Kuldeep Yadav in the second match, however, he also explained that the decision to not include him in the game was taken after their assessment of the pitch on Day 1 where the team management felt that there was assistance for both spinners and fast bowlers. He said:
“Ideally, the impact player rule that has been introduced in IPL, had that been in Test matches as well, I would have definitely brought back Kuldeep Yadav in the second innings. It was a tough call given that in the last match he won us the game against Bangladesh. He was the Man of the Match. But what we felt after seeing the pitch the first day, we though there would be assistance for both fast bowlers and spinners and with that we wanted to play the best balanced team possible. That is a call we made and I don’t regret the decision. If you notice, the fast bowlers took a lot of wickets. There was assistance for the fast bowlers and lot of inconsistent bounce. And we took this decision from our experience of playing in the one-days,”
