ENG vs IND, 4th Test: After a long wait, will Kuldeep get lucky at Old Trafford?
As India trained at the Beckenham County Ground on a cloudy Thursday morning, after a two-day break, Kuldeep Yadav bowled to Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Easwaran in one of the nets for about an hour. Not at a stretch, but at frequent intervals.
Since landing in England nearly a month ago, this has been Kuldeep’s regime – turn up to train, bowl in the nets, and then warm the bench as the morning of the match dawns.
He had to wait in Leeds, then watch Washington Sundar being picked as second spinner alongside Ravindra Jadeja in Birmingham before the same duo was preferred at Lord’s. All the left-arm wrist spinner could do was train alone at the Nursery Ground in between the sessions.
But with some sort of turn expected at Old Trafford, will Kuldeep get lucky?
Former Indian wicketkeeper-batter Farokh Engineer, who has been a resident of Manchester for years and knows the conditions well, believes that India should bring Kuldeep in and leave Nitish Kumar Reddy out, while former England captain Allan Lamb has a slightly different take.
Knowing the Old Trafford surface inside out, Lamb believes that Washington should make way for Kuldeep. “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 told Sportstar.
In the last couple of games, India played Washington and Jadeja, keeping their all-round skills in mind, and that paid off as the former claimed key wickets at Lord’s while the latter fought a lone battle with the bat in 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 to not play Kuldeep surprises me,” Lamb said.
Ever since making his Test debut in March 2017 against Australia in Dharamsala, Kuldeep has featured in just 13 matches across nine series but still bagged multiple Player of the Match awards. At home, he had to warm the bench due to the presence of R. Ashwin, Jadeja and Axar Patel for the longest time. On overseas tours, the team management’s decision to often play just one spinner meant either Jadeja or Ashwin made the cut.
With Ashwin retiring last December, and Jasprit Bumrah not available for more than three games, there were chances of the team management using Kuldeep as the specialist spinner in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.
However, that hasn’t been the case so far.
While Kuldeep is not limited by the conditions and has the ability to provide breakthroughs at crucial junctures, the team management decided to look beyond him, possibly due to the flat nature of the surfaces in Leeds and Birmingham.
But with the series on the line and the Old Trafford strip expected to aid the spinners a bit, it remains to be seen whether the team management finally brings Kuldeep into the side or not.
