HYDERABAD (India): India’s spin-twins Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal will return to action when India hosts the West Indies in the three T20 internationals, that starts here on Friday.
In fact, after the 2017 Champions Trophy, Yadav and Chahal were hailed as India’s answer to the wrist-spin trend in world cricket, but the duo have not played a single T20 together this year.
“The increased depth in batting was one of the reasons why Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal were excluded,” captain Virat Kohli had said a couple of months ago.
A total of seven spinners have been tried out across 13 matches in India’s T20 line-ups this year. Krunal Pandya featured in 12 of these matches though he is not in the squad for the West Indies series.
India’s squad for 3 T20Is: Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma (VC), KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant (WK), Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sanju Samson
During the course of the year, the selectors picked leggies like Mayank Markande and Rahul Chahar, but ended up playing just one match each.
Off-break all-rounder Washington Sundar and Pandya got extended stints as desired by Kohli.
Ravindra Jadeja too returned to the mix after his World Cup exploits, getting four T20I’s this year.
“I’m a massive Kuldeep Yadav fan and in terms of strike rates you see he is the quickest to 100 ODI wickets,” former team India batting coach Sanjay Bangar told Star Sports.
However, with the T20 World Cup scheduled in Australia next year, spin may have to take a backseat to pace.
“West Indies struggle against wrist spin. I think this is the right series to get them back,” said former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin.
