For nearly a decade, Kuldeep Yadav has been in the most thankless position for an Indian Test cricketer – on the periphery, in the vicinity, if not at the core. The left-arm spinner made his Test debut in 2017 and has played only 18 of them so far.

That he has played just 18 Tests is an astonishing statistic for a bowler whose talent has been rather unique in the modern-day Test arena.

The Indian off-spinner isn't your typical wristy spinner. He is a left-arm leg-spinner, a rarity in limited and first-class cricket and even more so in the Test arena. However, India's most eccentric spinner has had to wait for the chance to cement his spot in the Test team – the opportunity to bowl consistently and find his best form on the biggest stage.

Maybe he was waiting for the right moment – or maybe not. India had their own spin twins in Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja – two players more used to slotting in the Test team's attack than just playing a part in it.

The two could be relied on to rack up huge numbers of runs from the opponents' innings while cleaning up the tail as well – making the Test side incredibly flexible with its batting and bowling resources.

Ashwin, in particular, had been India's best spinner for nearly a decade.

Now that Ashwin has retired and Jadeja is 37, India's Test team has entered a new era – one where the old guard is slowly stepping aside for the young and hungry. Which makes Kuldeep Yadav's spot in the Test team even more intriguing – for the new era has begun.

In this new era, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have also exited – paving the way for a new order in Indian batting. While India's new guard in the batting makes for exciting viewing, there is an even bigger challenge ahead – one for Kuldeep Yadav, the first-choice spinner.

The problem with Kuldeep Yadav has never been his talent

The case for Kuldeep Yadav was easy to make. The case for him inside an XI has always been far more difficult

Under a captain like Gautam Gambhir, India have had an ingrained preference for batting depth. An extra batter plus an all-rounder has so often trumped the need for a second specialist bowler, and in this calculus Kuldeep Yadav has been the odd man out.

He has not been able to offer the same contribution with the bat as someone like Jadeja or Ashwin, and he has languished in that limbo of a player good enough to be around, but never at the core of things.

This has had its impact, both in a psychological sense as well as in terms of opportunities. Kuldeep Yadav didn't play a single Test during India's recent trip to England, where a new era of the World Test Championship was begun. He missed out on a series in which India not once, but twice, tinkered with their XI.

For a bowler, and particularly for a spinner, that kind of discontinuity can be incredibly costly, as former India spinner Murali Kartik knew.

Speaking to India Today regarding Kuldeep Yadav's predicament, Kartik said that the problem with inconsistent selection was that “I can tell you from personal experience, if you don't have that run, just ask any cricketer.

When you are in and out, in and out, there is no continuity. There is no real good feeling at all.

“You don't know why you are around, why you're in. And it creates a lot of doubts in your own mind. That could be the main issue with Kuldeep Yadav's Test career.

He has had to fight for every match, and with every appearance, the pressure mounts that he has to prove himself all over again.

“You know you're good. That's why you're in the 15. But if you're in and out of the playing XI, it creates a lot of doubts. That's why I said he needs to be handled well,” said Kartik. “He doesn't have to be the next Jadeja, obviously.

One of the problems with his selection has always been the fact that he has been seen as an all-rounder. He is not a rabbit with the bat. We have seen him as a nightwatchman who can spend a long amount of time at the crease. He does not have the hitting ability of Jadeja and Ashwin, so I would not look at him that way.”

That is probably the most crucial point in Kartik's argument.

Kuldeep does not have to be seen as another Jadeja, an all-rounder of the same kind as Ashwin. He simply has to be seen as a bowler whose contributions with the bat are not going to be on par with those two, but whose bowling can be exceptional enough to warrant a place in the team. After all, his variety and deception are special enough that they are already being compared to wrist-spinners across the globe, but he can also create space differently with his left-arm orthodox deliveries.

A bowler's ability to be a match-winner often comes down to their ability to take wickets. It is a crude metric, but a reliable one. And in that regard, Kuldeep Yadav can certainly hold his own. At his best, he can be a genuinely threatening opponent for any batter, especially on a surface that offers him help. His variations can entice a batter into hitting a regulation delivery, or scare them away from doing so.

He is a far more potent weapon than mere spin bowling on a good pitch. He can settle a batter, create doubts, and get rid of them. Sri Lanka could provide the ideal opportunity for that to happen.

India's upcoming two-Test series against Sri Lanka begins in Galle, from where the fledgling World Test Championship gets underway. India's chances of winning the league, let alone the tournament, are slim at best. They are fifth in the rankings, and in their Test side they continue to search for new ideas.

The old guard are being replaced, and the new guard has not yet asserted its authority. Kartik has seen Kuldeep Yadav play now, and in his estimation, the spinner is ready to make the most of his opportunities.

At 31, Kuldeep Yadav is no spring chicken, and he has been around the block quite a few times in his decade-long international career. He has tasted success, and he has also been let down. But what he has not yet had is a chance to show what he is truly made of in a Test match.

Sri Lanka could be the place, and the surface, for him to do so.

It would require him to seize his opportunities, but it would also require India to give him the chance to do so. After all, a spinner who can create space and get wickets will always be more valuable than one who sits at the non-scoring end of the crease.

A strong series would not only provide India with the luxury of extra wickets but also a chance to execute an important performance.

It could give them a template. India's Test match schedule will soon throw up tough assignments, including a mouthwatering clash against Australia later this year in the WTC cycle, and management must realize who its key players are.

Kuldeep Yadav could be one of them, but it requires one thing he has never been provided with before. Faith.

“Ashwin and Jadeja were match-winners because they were treated as match-winners. You need to have a degree of consistency with a bowler, and for a bowler or any player for that matter, to be treated with consistency, if they say they are a match-winner, then you need to prepare them as a match-winner,” said Kartik.

That is what Kohli and, to an extent, Rohit, did with Ashwin and Jadeja.

They gave them the confidence of knowing they could get past the initial few matches, that even if they had a bad game, one that could see them drop out of the team entirely, they would still be given a chance to fix it. They were given the leeway to grow and to improve. Kuldeep deserves that too.

“If you handle (Kuldeep Yadav) well, you will get the best out of him,” said Kartik. That perhaps would be the most crucial lesson for India's management as they begin to restructure their Test team.

Kuldeep Yadav does not need to be a guaranteed member of the side, no matter what figures he posts, nor does he need to be eased into the role of a Test match bowler.

What he requires is what any other match winner would require: an opportunity to fail, to learn, to adapt without the fear that the next failure would see them dropped from the team. Yadav has been the odd man out for the last nine years.

With Ashwin's exit and Jadeja's ageing, a new core for India's batting unit is being worked on with the Test match innings as one of its main focuses.

The question, then, is not whether or not Kuldeep Yadav is worthy of a place in India's Test team, because they have had almost a decade to figure that out. The real question is, how good can Kuldeep Yadav be if they finally give him the chance to find out?

And that chance may come in the form of Sri Lanka.