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India head coach Gautam Gambhir's strategic shift in the second Test match against England in Birmingham has drawn significant attention. Three changes were made to the playing XI, bringing in Washington Sundar, Akash Deep and Nitish Reddy in place of Sai Sudharsan, Jasprit Bumrah and Shardul Thakur respectively. It became very evident that all-rounders are more focused upon. While Jasprit Bumrah was rested to manage his workload, the exclusion of Kuldeep Yadav was to focus on batting-depth and addressing lower-order batting concerns.
This led to rise in a lot of concerns by the experts. Former India bowler, Dodda Ganesh expressed his disagreement on snubbing left-arm chinaman bowler by saying that Kuldeep's secondary skills shall not dictate the selection criteria.
He made a cutting remark on the same and tweeted: "Kuldeep should bat in top 3 for Uttar Pradesh in the #Ranji Trophy and get some runs, to be picked to play for India in the tests. I don’t see any other way he can force his way back into this setup where one’s secondary skill dictates the team selection”.
What Gill said about benching Kuldeep?
Earlier, captain Shubman Gill had said, "We were tempted to play Kuldeep but looking at the last match, our lower order didn't do well, so decided to add some depth to the batting."
Gill scores ton in Edgbaston
At the end of Day's play, India's score read 310/5. Shubman Gill scored back-to-back tons since becoming Test captain and finished the day unbeaten at 114. Opener Yashasvi Jaiswal (87) continued his golden run of form with a seventh fifty-plus score in as many matches.
Ravindra Jadeja and Gill have put up a 99-run partnership for the sixth wicket. On the other end, Jadeja is unbeaten at 41.
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