In his first press conference as India’s full-time ODI captain, Rohit Sharma made it clear that he will re-join the pair of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav and given an extended run to the latter.
After the ineffectiveness of India’s spinners in the South Africa ODI series, Kuldeep Yadav, recovered from a knee injury, has been brought back in the ODI setup to provide breakthroughs in the middle-overs.
He will reunite with Chahal; the pair who had been highly successful between 2017 and the 2019 World Cup was broken during the tournament. Their form took a nosedive, especially that of Kuldeep’s.
On the eve of the first ODI versus West Indies in Ahmedabad, Rohit Sharma pointed out that the duo had been a successful pair and had to be separated because of the combination India wanted to play.
“They are going to be crucial going forward. These two guys have been great performers for us in the past, they’ve certainly created an impact in those years whenever they’ve played together. In the middle why they have been left out was because of combination,” Rohit said on Saturday.
“We wanted to get an extra batter in, at times we wanted to get an extra seamer in, so that is probably why one of the two have missed out, but it’s certainly on my mind to get them back together, Kuldeep especially.”
Speaking on Kuldeep, Rohit Sharma assured that the chinaman will get a longer run as he’s coming back after a long injury layoff and without any match practise behind him.
He wasn’t picked in the eleven by KKR during the India leg of IPL 2021 and missed the UAE leg due to injury. Kuldeep had knee surgery last October and has been rehabilitating since, missing out on the domestic white-ball matches.
“He hasn’t played since the IPL, then he got injured and was out since then. He hasn’t played a lot of games after that, so we want to get him in slowly. We don’t want to rush into things. It can’t do good for either the team or him,” Sharma said.
“You have to give him some time to come into his groove, to come into his own, and that is going to take a little bit of time. We straightaway don’t want to put him into a situation where we are asking too much of him also. I think for us, it’s important we handle that situation carefully. For us, very important players both of these guys.”
Sunday’s game will be India’s 1000th ODI match; they become the first team to play 1000 ODIs. Currently, out of 999 matches, India have 518 wins and 431 losses.
