India made a clean sweep of Bangladesh 2-0 in the two-match Test series. India won the first Test by 188 runs. At the same time, in the second Test, Shreyas Iyer teamed up with Ravichandran Ashwin to win the team by three wickets. Chasing a target of 145 runs, India had at one stage lost seven wickets for 74 runs in their second innings.
After this, Shreyas shared an unbeaten 71-run partnership for the eighth wicket with Ashwin. The spinners of both the teams wreaked havoc in this Test.
However, the Indian team management dropped Man of the Match Kuldeep Yadav from the playing-11 of the previous match. There was a lot of criticism of the team management including captain KL Rahul on this. However, Rahul justified his decision of not playing Kuldeep after the match.
Rahul doesn’t regret dropping Kuldeep –
KL Rahul, who has been leading the side due to injury to regular skipper Rohit Sharma, on Sunday admitted that India missed Kuldeep Yadav in the second innings but said he has no regrets about dropping the ‘Chinaman’ bowler.
Jaydev Unadkat was included in the team in place of Kuldeep, who took a total of three wickets in both innings. Sunil Gavaskar was angry with this decision of Rahul and reprimanded the team management.
“Right decision to replace Kuldeep with Unadkat” –
Rahul defended his decision to drop Kuldeep and said – ‘I have no regrets on this decision. It was the right decision. If you look at the wickets, our fast bowlers have also taken a lot of wickets and they got a lot of help. There was a lot of inconsistent bounce. We took this decision keeping in mind our experience of playing ODIs here. We saw that there is support for both spin and fast bowlers. I think it was a right decision to drop Kuldeep and give a chance to an additional fast bowler. It was a really tough decision knowing he won us the last Test but seeing the pitch the day before the match we felt that both the fast bowlers and seamers would be helped. Keeping this in mind we wanted to develop the best and balanced team. ‘
Rahul remembered Kuldeep in the second innings –
Rahul said that if there was an ‘impact player’ rule, he would definitely have given Kuldeep a chance in the second innings. Rahul said- “If there was an impact player rule, as it is going to be in the IPL, I would definitely have liked to bring Kuldeep in the second innings. The Impact Player rule allows you to replace one player with another. The player you send off will not be able to play any other role in the match.”
At the same time, the player coming on the field in his place will be able to show his game. This rule will be applicable in IPL from this year. However, this will be only for Indian players. This rule will not apply to foreign players.
Many questions arose on the decision to exclude Kuldeep –
A lot of questions were raised on the decision to drop Kuldeep. The chinaman bowler took five wickets in the first innings and three wickets in the second innings of the first Test in Chittagong.
Apart from this, 40 runs were also scored in the first innings. The dominance of the spinners was seen in the second Test in Dhaka. A total of 37 wickets fell in the match, out of which the spinners took 25 wickets. In the second innings of both the teams, the ball was turning a lot on the wicket.
In such a situation, Kuldeep could have proved fatal for Bangladesh. This happened for the second time with Kuldeep when he was dropped from the team after a good performance. In 2019, Kuldeep took five wickets in the innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
After this he was out of the team for two years. At the same time, now in the first Test against Bangladesh in 2022, Kuldeep bowled his best in Tests. After this he was dropped from the next test.
Rahul defended his poor form –
Rahul himself appeared in bad form in this series. He has scored 22, 23, 10 and 2 in the last four innings including both the Tests. Defending his batting, Rahul said- ‘When you play all three formats, it is a bit difficult to jump from one format to another. It takes some time to adapt from the format you were playing to the other format. Each format is a challenge to see how quickly you can adapt. It’s a challenge that excites me.’
Rahul said- “Obviously my performance in this series was not good. I am accepting it. I tried my best and it didn’t work. I will focus on it further and see what I can do better next time.”
Along with this, Rahul also blamed the busy schedule for the poor performance. Rahul said- “Unfortunately our schedule is very wrong for some players who want to play all the matches to adapt themselves to every format and get used to it very quickly. “
Rahul praised Shreyas Iyer fiercely –
Rahul said- “This is a challenge for us. We would have needed more time to concentrate between red ball and white ball cricket. Red ball cricket requires patience, for which players do not have time.” Rahul also praised Shreyas Iyer fiercely. Iyer had a stellar performance in the series as he averaged 101 with two fifties. He was the second highest run-scorer in the Test series after Cheteshwar Pujara (222) with 202 runs.
Rahul said- “Iyer has been with the team for a long time. I am very happy for them. He grabbed the opportunity with both hands. The way he played in the second innings, it was brilliant. He made the run chase look really easy.”