MANCHESTER: It's difficult being Kuldeep Yadav. Even more so with each passing day with your team on a downward spiral and you cannot do much other than watching the horror show helplessly from outside the boundary ropes.
For the fourth time on a trot, the left-arm wrist spinner could not find a place in the playing XI in this England tour. The team management instead decided to go with its approach of adding more depth to the batting department by including two all-rounders.
On the Old Trafford surface which is known to give some purchase to a specialist spinner as the game progresses, India decided to bring in fast bowling-all-rounder Shardul Thakur in place of injured Nitish Kumar Reddy. Agreed, they did have spin bowling-all-rounders in form of Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar but the former has impressed more as a batter than as a bowler in the series so far. He scalped four wickets in the ongoing Test but by then England had already taken a huge first innings lead of 311 runs to push the visitors to the wall.
Kuldeep last played a Test in October 2024 when he claimed three wickets against touring New Zealand in the first match of three-game series in Bengaluru. He got injured after the first match and was replaced with Tamil Nadu all-rounder Sundar for the next match in Pune. The 30-year-old Uttar Pradesh spinner was unavailable for selection for the subsequent Australia tour and instead headed to the BCCI Centre of Excellence for a long term resolution of his chronic left groin issue. Overall he has played 13 Tests so far picking up 56 wickets including four five-fers to his credit.
With England facing its driest spring in over a century, pitches for the five-match series were expected to be helpful for spinners raising hopes of Kuldeep, who had returned to the national fold. Unfortunately for him, even the drought-like situation in England could not help him regain his spot in the playing XI, at least in the first four matches.
Morne Morkel, India's bowling coach, admitted after the play on Day 3 that they are trying their best to find a place for him but could not do that as they wanted to strengthen the batting line-up "I think it's finding when he comes in, how can we find balance and how can we get that batting line-up to be a little bit longer and stronger. We've seen in the past that we've lost wickets in a heap and Kuldeep is world-class and he's bowling really well at the moment. So we're trying our best to find ways for him to get in. But unfortunately with that, just the balance with the batting throws it out a little bit," he told reporters after the day's play on Friday.
The former South African pacer admitted the wicket in Manchester has been dry but for the sake of longer batting order, they have preferred all-rounders over the specialist spinner. "I do think at the end of the day you need runs on the board. For us, obviously giving that a little bit of extra batting protection, wanting to get totals of 400-plus, you need that against England, especially the way they play their brand of cricket. But to be honest, the wicket so far has been dry and it's actually spun a little bit. So that brings Washington into the game, it brings Jadeja into the game. So like I said, Kuldeep, we're trying to find a way for him, but it is just more consistent runs from our top six that we want so we can bring in a guy like Kuldeep in."
Jadeja, however, as a spin all-rounder has not been that effective especially in the English conditions. He has played 14 matches in England so far including the first innings of the Manchester Test and picked up 29 wickets at an average of 51.34, which is quite high in comparison to his career average of 24.93. In fact, his batting average is better in England. It's more than 41 in comparison to his overall average of around 37.
Even in the ongoing series, he is not the leading wicket taker among the spinners. Shoaib Bashir, who was ruled out of the Test series during the Lord's match, is leading the chart with 10 wickets from three matches. Jadeja, who has bowled one more innings than Bashir, has taken seven wickets so far with the last four coming in Manchester. His compatriot Washington Sundar too has claimed seven wickets from three matches till England's first innings.
With the spinners claiming seven out of 20 wickets till England's first innings, the surface definitely has something for the tweakers. Had India decided to go with Kuldeep, he could have played a key role in the match. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
