The combination of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav was pivotal to India’s team composition in white-ball cricket at one point of time. However, in the recent past, both spinners have somewhat fallen out of favour with Axar Patel and Washington Sundar coming into the team along with veteran options like Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. During the press conference ahead of the third ODI encounter between India and Australia, head coach Rahul Dravid revealed the future plan regarding the two young talents and even lamented the lack of chances given to Chahal recently.
“We are always presuming that the wickets will spin in India. We just actually presume. I don’t think the last 2 spun at all. We never know what we are going to get in the World Cup,” Dravid said.
“In the league phase, nine cities, it is in October, the wickets won’t be as tired as they probably are in the IPL and (that too) at the back-end of our summer. You just have to get all your bases covered.”
As a result, Dravid believes that a wrist-spin can be a better option.
“Obviously having a wrist spinner, if he is bowling well, is a huge advantage. Taking wickets in the middle overs is important. A wrist spinner gives that chance to be attacking and take wickets in the middle overs which is why have given Kuldeep a pretty consistent run.”
“We have Yuzi (Chahal), who is unfortunately is a very fine bowler and is missing out. At the moment, we believe in giving people a consistent run before we make decisions and Kuldeep is the one that is getting the run over the last few games,” he concluded during the press conference.
