In a surprising decision, India skipper KL Rahul dropped the first Test hero Kuldeep Yadav from the second outing against Bangladesh on Thursday (December 22). India's star pacer, Jaydev Unadkat, who returned to Test cricket after 12 years, was preferred over Kuldeep.
Meanwhile, India's legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar tore into India for dropping the first Test's Player of the Match and termed it unbelievable. Kuldeep snared eight wickets, including a fifer in the first innings of the first Test, to lead India to an emphatic 188-run victory at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram.
The cricket great feels India shouldn't have snubbed the star spinner and said that it was audacious for the team to leave out a player who won the match for the side and was adjudged the Man of the Match for his exceptional show with the ball and bat as well.
“Dropping a Man of the Match, that is unbelievable. That’s the only word I can use and it’s a gentle word. I would like to use quite stronger words, but it’s unbelievable that you left out a man of the match, who got eight out of the 20 wickets,” Gavaskar told Sony Sports Network.
“You have got two other spinners. So surely, one of the other spinners could have been dropped. But this guy, who took eight wickets should have played today with due respect to what the pitch looks like,” he further added.
Kuldeep scalped a brilliant fifer in the first innings of the opening Test, his third in Test cricket. Thereafter, he got three wickets in the second and was arguably the pick of the Indian bowlers in the match. He also became the first Indian bowler to take a five-wicket haul in Chattogram.
During the toos, India's stand-in skipper KL Rahul said that the visiting team had to take the tough call of leaving Kuldeep out for Unadkat.
“Unfortunate decision for us to leave him (Kuldeep) out but it's an opportunity for Unadkat,” Rahul said during the toss.
Meanwhile, India lost the toss and are put to bowl first in the second Test in Mirpur on Thursday.
India's Playing XI: KL Rahul(c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jaydev Unadkat, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.
Bangladesh Playing XI: Najmul Hossain Shanto, Zakir Hasan, Mominul Haque, Litton Das, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan(c), Nurul Hasan(w), Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Khaled Ahmed, Taskin Ahmed.
