- By Namrata Vijay
- Fri, 18 Jul 2025 11:52 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
IND vs ENG: The Men in Blue attended a training session at the Beckenham County Ground under overcast conditions on Thursday, post a two-day break, where Kuldeep Yadav was seen bowling to Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Easwaran for almost an hour. He didn't bowl continuously but at regular intervals.
Ever since he arrived in England almost a month back, Kuldeep Yadav's routine has been attending training sessions and then getting dropped from the playing XI on the morning of the matches.
He kept waiting during the series opener in Headingley and then saw Washington Sundar being preferred as the second spinner along with Ravindra Jadeja at Edgbaston, and then those two were again picked for the third Test match at Lord's. All Kuldeep did was attend training sessions alone at the Nursery Ground during the time of the match.
Since the pitch at Old Trafford would offer some sort of turn, the question is, will Kuldeep finally get a chance to play?
Ex-Indian wicketkeeper batter Farokh Engineer, who has been living in Manchester for the last few years and is quite aware of the pitch conditions there, has reckoned that the team management should include Kuldeep Yadav and drop Nitish Kumar Reddy, whereas Ex-England skipper Allen Lamb had a different view.
Lamb, who also knew the surface at Old Trafford quite well, revealed that Washington Sundar should be replaced by Kuldeep Yadav. “There’s one thing lacking in the Indian team. They do not have a (specialist) spinner. They have got to be playing Kuldeep. At Old Trafford, it does turn a bit, and I would have (played) him straightaway,” Lamb was quoted as saying to Sportstar.
Since the last few matches, the Indian team management has included both Washington and Jadeja in their playing XI, since both of them are all-rounders, and that's why this decision worked in their favour as Washington took wickets at Lord's, whereas Jadeja played the role of a lone warrior as a batter during the second innings“Washington and Jadeja are all-rounders, but they are more focused on their batting, and I understand why India picked them because they were worried about their batting at the beginning. But now, that’s not the case. The decision not to play Kuldeep surprises me,” Lamb added.
Kuldeep made his debut in the longest format way back in 2017 against Australia and has played in 13 Test matches across nine series since then, and was adjudged the Player of the match award multiple times. Back in India, he was dropped from the playing XI due to the presence of R Ashwin, Jadeja, and Axar Patel. And in the overseas series, the team management picked just one spinner in the playing XI, and that meant either Jadeja or Ashwin was selected.
Since Ashwin had retired from this format in December last year and Jasprit Bumrah was not playing in more than three matches, there were high chances that Kuldeep might have cut a specialist spinner during the ongoing series.
But that hasn't been the case till now.
Since Kuldeep doesn't get restricted by the conditions and has the skills to give the team the much-needed breakthroughs, the team management chose to look beyond him, owing to the flat nature of the pitch at Headingley and Edgbaston.
And with everything at stake for the Men in Blue, the surface in Manchester is expected to help the spinners, but it would be interesting to see if Kuldeep is finally selected in the playing XI or not.
