"I don't regret that", KL Rahul defends decision to drop Kuldeep Yadav in Dhaka Test

Dhaka, Dec 26: Team India avoided a big embarrassment by not letting the second Test against Bangladesh slip away from their hands, thanks to a gritty partnership between Shreyas Iyer and Ravichandran Ashwin. The visitors won the game by three wickets and clean swept the series 2-0.

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However, the team's performance and team selection raised a lot of questions throughout the second game, which was held at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur.

India shock by dropping Kuldeep in Dhaka Test

The biggest surprise from India came on the opening day of the match in Dhaka when spinner Kuldeep Yadav - who bagged the player of the match award in the Chattogram Test - was dropped from the playing eleven to make way for an extra seamer. Jaydev Unadkat - the left-arm quick from Saurashtra - was given preference over Kuldeep.

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Several cricketing greats and experts were baffled by the team management's decision to drop the chinaman spinner - who could have been equally effective on the turning Dhaka surface.

Third spinner was missed in 3rd innings

While the visitors didn't feel the need for Kuldeep in the first innings of Bangladesh's batting but the left-arm wrist-spinner from Uttar Pradesh was definitely missed, especially when the hosts' tail was wagging. Bangladesh's lower middle order played a counter-attacking knock in the second innings after they were 102 for 5. Many felt that Kuldeep could have helped the team wrap up Bangladesh's second innings early.

However, stand-in India skipper KL Rahul backed the team's decision to not play Kuldeep after India completed a 2-0 series victory in the series.

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Bangladesh were effectively 26/2 in the second innings with India having an 87-run first-innings lead. Still, India were eventually left chasing 145 in the fourth innings after Litton Das, Nurul Hasan, and Taskin Ahmed added runs quickly at the back end of the innings.

Rahul defends decision to drop Kuldeep

Spinners took 12 of the 16 wickets that went to bowlers in the third and fourth innings of the Test, but skipper Rahul backed the decision to go with the three quicks while not playing Kuldeep.

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Claiming it to be a tough call, Rahul said, "It was a tough call, knowing and understanding that he had just won the Test for us."

"But seeing the pitch before the game and on the first day, we felt that there will be assistance for both fast bowlers and spinners. We wanted to play the best team we can. And that's the call we made.

"I don't regret that, and that was the right decision. If you see the 20 wickets we took, a lot of wickets [ten] even the fast bowlers took. They had a lot of assistance and there was a lot of inconsistent bounce.

"All these decisions we took keeping in mind the experience of playing here in the ODIs. We saw that there was assistance for both spin and fast bowlers. Understanding that a Test match goes on for four or five days, you need to have both."

This win, however, gives Team India a major boost going into the home series against Australia in February-March as their chances of making the ICC World Test Championship final are well and truly on.