KL Rahul reveals why Kuldeep Yadav was dropped in second Test against Bangladesh

Team India won by 3 wickets in the second Test match of the series against Bangladesh. With this, India claimed the 2-match series by 2-0. Chasing the target of 145 runs, the Indian team was struggling at 74 for 7 at one time, but thanks to the partnership of Ravichandran Ashwin and Shreyas Iyer, which took India over the line. Ashwin, who was the player of the match, shared an unbroken 71-run partnership with Iyer for the 8th wicket. India made a 2-0 clean sweep in the two-match series against Bangladesh.

Questions were raised about the playing XI of the second Test match played in Dhaka, as chinaman spinner Kuldeep Yadav was dropped despite a good performance in the opening match. Now the stand-in skipper KL Rahul has given a statement on this.

Kuldeep played an important role in the first Test match against Bangladesh to make India win. He became the man of the match in the last match. However, despite this, the stand-in skipper KL Rahul dropped him from the team for the second Test match. Ravichandran Ashwin didn’t perform well in Chattogram but he still got the chance to play in Mirpur, he was successful in doing wonders with both bat and ball. Rahul broke his silence on Kuldeep being dropped from the Mirpur Test.

I don't regret the decision: KL Rahul

Rahul admitted that the team missed Kuldeep's services in the second match but explained the that decision was taken after their assessment of the pitch on Day 1 where they felt that there was assistance for both spinners and fast bowlers.

“Ideally, the impact player rule that has been introduced in the Indian T20 League, had that been in Test matches as well, I would have definitely brought back Kuldeep Yadav in the second innings. It was a tough call given that in the last match he won us the game against Bangladesh. He was the Man of the Match," KL Rahul was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

"But what we felt after seeing the pitch the first day, we though there would be assistance for both fast bowlers and spinners and with that we wanted to play the best balanced team possible. That is a call we made and I don't regret the decision. If you notice, the fast bowlers took a lot of wickets. There was assistance for the fast bowlers and lot of inconsistent bounce. And we took this decision from our experience of playing in the one-days,” added India's stand-in skipper.