kl rahul kuldeep yadav sportstiger

After ensuring the clean sweep in a two-Test series against Bangladesh, India’s stand-in skipper KL Rahul explained the reason behind dropping Kuldeep Yadav from the 2nd Test match. Despite winning the Player of the Match award for his incredible all-round performance in the series opener, Kuldeep was dropped for the second Test in Mirpur, which didn’t go down well with fans and former cricketers.

Notably, Sunil Gavaskar was one to openly criticize the decision by calling Kuldeep’s exclusion ‘unbelievable.’ Meanwhile, the Indian skipper came up with an epic response after he was asked about his decision to drop the left-arm unorthodox. While addressing the media after 2nd Test, KL Rahul said that if the impact player rule had been in Test matches, he would have definitely brought back Kuldeep in the second innings.

“It was a tough call given that in the last matches he won us the game against Bangladesh. He was the Man of the Match, but what we felt after seeing the pitch the first day. We thought there would be assistance for both fast bowlers and spinners and with that, we wanted to play the best-balanced team possible. That’s the call we made,  and I don’t regret it,” KL Rahul said.

Just like the series opener, another off-spinner won the 2nd Test for Team India as R Ashwin batted brilliantly on Day 4 of the match and stitched a match-winning partnership to ensure an exciting victory for the visitors. While chasing 144, Bangladesh spinner firmed their grip in the match as they reduced India to 71/7 but R Ashwin and Shreyas Iyer showed a lot of character as they batted brilliantly in Mirpur to confirm a clean sweep for Team India.