Kuldeep Yadav is back in Test playing XI after a long time. He made an instant impact in the second Test against England by dismissing Ben Duckett, who scored 21 runs off 17 balls. He was caught by Rajat Patidar.
Reacting to Kuldeep’s bowling in the game so far, his friend and teammate, Yuzvendra Chahal made a special wish for the spinner. Chahal has predicted a five-wicket haul for Yadav.
Despite making his Test debut in 2017, Kuldeep has played just 9 games for the team. Infact, the ongoing Test against the Ben Stokes-led team, is his ninth red-ball contest.
He has taken 34 wickets at an average of 21.55 in the longest format of the game. The management has preferred Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin over Yadav. Both Jadeja and Ashwin haven’t delivered in overseas matches but the selectors, captains and coaches haven’t shown confidence in Kuldeep’s abilities.
When he took a five-wicket haul against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the then head coach Ravi Shastri had announced that Kuldeep would be India’s first choice in overseas games but that never happened.
Coming back to the second Test, England have been sensational with the bat. Zak Crawley has scored 72 runs off 75 balls, including 10 fours and 2 sixes.
Earlier, India were bowled out for 396 runs in their first innings, with Yashasvi Jaiswal scoring 209 runs.
For England, James Anderson, Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed dismissed three batters each.