Delhi: Out of 5 of the series against England, 4 have played Tests, but Team India specialist Spinner Kuldeep Yadav did not get any of these Tests. Now the desire to feed the batting all -rounders on the plea of better team balance of team management has also been revealed. In this affair, Kuldeep Yadav had to sit on the bench. When we were making strategy for this series, it was discussed that these wrist spinners Kuldeep will keep the batsmen of the hosts and take wickets but it happened that they remain more ‘tourists’.

Bowling coach Morne Morkel has also accepted that there is more emphasis on the batting cover in the playing XI for the current series and that is why Kuldeep Yadav has not got a chance to play a single Test yet. In the Old Trafford Test, the weakness of bowling contributed to England in scoring more than 600 runs. With this, he took a lead of more than 300 and India came on the backfoot.

They are also in favor of giving Kuldeep a chance, but it could not happen while balanceing with batting. Here the matter comes to the strategy for the team’s coach series. The focus in the team played in these four Tests was on batting and it was said that if the hosts scored a lot of runs on these flat pitches, then the same answer would have to be given. With this, his top 6 did not have enough confidence that he will continue to score so many runs that he should compete with England. Therefore, it became necessary to prolong the batting line up and the result was that Kuldeep Yadav was out. Kuldeep Yadav has not played any Test since October 2024 despite his amazing talent.

It is necessary to mention a very funny record in this discussion. Kuldeep made his Test debut against Dharamshala Australia in March 2017. Since then, Kuldeep and India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel have played 13 Tests. Morkel played these 13 Tests in a year while Kuldeep in 8 years. Morkel retired from international cricket in March 2018, a total of 86 Test games.

• Kuldeep played 6 Tests from 2017 to 2019
• Play one Test each in 2021 and 2022
• Played 3 against England in 2024 and one against New Zealand
• 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar was not fit for the trophy while returning to this England series but not played a single Test match in 2025 yet

As a strike bowler, Kuldeep Yadav took 19 wickets in 4 Tests against England last year and to keep in mind the same fact in the current series that he could stop England’s run machine with a bowler like Kuldeep. The victory in the Test is not just by scoring runs, but taking 20 wickets.

So is it necessary that the only bowler will play who is better in batting? At this time, the thinking has become that play with such a bowler who does not take wickets, score 20 additional runs. This mentality has to be changed. If he had thought the same in India a few years ago, he would not have played Tests with 3-4 spinners. It has to be decided whether we are looking for the batsman or the bowler? The first job of the bowler is to take wickets.

Kuldeep has 21 wickets in 6 Tests against England in records and even then the captain and coach support is not with him. By the way, let us tell you that Kuldeep has a 100 (117) in the name of Ranji Trophy and his top score in international cricket is 40 runs. Gautam Gambhir is on the same thinking that first decide that we do not lose. When Kohli was the captain, I thought, how can we win?