Kuldeep Yadav has been continuously sitting on the sidelines for Team India since the start of 2020. His last important engagement for the team was in the 2019 ICC World Cup after which he has been continuously ignored in all the formats. However, in the last 12 months or so, he hasn’t gotten many chances. In fact, back in February, Kuldeep made his comeback to Test cricket after two years.
He played the second Test match in Chennai and picked up two wickets as well. However. despite that he was ignored for the final two Tests in Ahmedabad. After going wicketless in two ODIs in Pune, he was left out again. Moreover, it’s nearly 16 months since Kuldeep played T20Is for the Men in Blue.
Talking to News 18, Kuldeep Yadav opened up on him being continuously ignored by the selection committee in the last two years. Not only that he has not played much of IPL cricket too for Kolkata Knight Riders in the last two years.
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“When you are playing non-stop, players do feel high on confidence. The more one sits out the more it gets tougher. I felt a huge pressure on me when I played the Test against England in Chennai this February. Due to Covid, there was nothing happening, so things got really tougher even more last year,” Kuldeep was quoted as saying in News18.
Having joined the KKR set up in 2014, he finally made his debut for the side in 2016. However, since 2020, he has not been given many chances. he played just five matches last season and none in KKR’s first seven games in 2021. He said he was surprised on being ignored for the games in Chennai which produced turning wickets ideal for his bowling.
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“I was especially when I didn’t find a place in my IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders. I wondered, ‘am I that bad?’ It’s a team-management decision and it would be wrong to go and ask them. I wasn’t played in Chennai during the IPL despite knowing it’s a turner. I was a bit shocked but couldn’t do anything,” Kuldeep added.
KKR preferred to play with Shakib Al Hasan, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarty with Shakib losing the faith of the management after a couple of games. Harbhajan Singh too was given a couple of games before he too was ruled out of favour.
In 2017 and 2018, he picked up a combined tally of 29 wickets from 28 games. However, in 2019 and 2020, he could manage only five wickets from 14 games after which he fell out of favor.
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