Indian leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal in an interview with Sports Tak said that if he and Kuldeep Yadav needs to play together for India, there should be a medium-pacer in the playing eleven. This will add balance to the team and make way for a second spinner, Chahal explained.
India selectors moved on from Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja as topspin duo for India in the limited-overs format and trusted the new pair of spin Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal. The spin duo of Kuldeep and Chahal together played in 34 ODIs out of 53 played by India winning 24 of them.
“When Kuldeep Yadav and I used to play, Hardik Pandya was also there and he would bowl. In 2018 Hardik Pandya got injured and Ravindra Jadeja made a comeback (in white-ball cricket) as an all-rounder, the one who could also bat at number 7. Unfortunately, he is a spinner, we could have played together if he was a medium pacer. It was the demand of the team,” Chahal told.
Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav played together in the 2019 World Cup match against England.
Chahal stated that if Hardik is bowling, then ‘Kul-Cha’ can feature again in Indian colors and feels that winning matches is paramount than him playing the match or not.
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“Kuldeep and I played 50-50 matches in any series. Sometimes he would play 3 matches of a five-match series, sometimes I would get the chance. The team combination is needed, 11 players make a team and ‘Kul-cha’ was not making it. We were there till Hardik was there, we were also given chances. The need of the team was to have an all-rounder at the No. 7 position. I am happy even if I am not playing but the team is winning,” Chahal added.
It was those times when Kuldeep and Chahal were around together, each gave one of their many better performances.
Kuldeep Yadav became the first Indian spinner to take an ODI hat-trick in 2017 (Eden Garden, against Australia). He also took another hat-trick in 2019 (Vizag, against West Indies). He is the only Indian to have claimed two hat-tricks in ODI’s.
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Yuzvendra Chahal 6/42 in 2019, becoming the first Indian bowler to grab a six-wicket-haul in Australia (Melbourne, against Australia)
Chahal’s and Kuldeep’s graphs have dipped a bit in past one year. Kuldeep is hardly seen in Indian colors, while Chahal was seen in an ODI in November.
