The spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav had a lot of success playing together. After India lost the Champions Trophy final, the team moved on from R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, and handed over the responsibilities to Kuldeep and Chahal, who over the next couple of years, played a lot of matches together, picking up plenty of wicket bowling in tandem.
Between September of 2017 and July of 2019, Kuldeep and Chahal had featured together in 34 ODIs out of the 53 played by India. Of those, India won 24 games. During this, Kuldeep picked up a hat-trick while Chahal registered his career-best figures of 6/42 in Australia, becoming the first Indian bowler to grab a six-wicket-haul there.
However, if the last two years are to be taken into consideration, Kuldeep and Chahal have not played together. The reason behind it, Chahal explains, has to do with the combination of the team. The leg-spinner, who last played with Kuldeep in the 2019 World Cup match against England, has revealed that the reason he and Kuldeep no longer feature together in India's Playing XI is because of what happened with Hardik Pandya and his injury.
"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 Sports Tak in an interview.
{{/usCountry}}"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 Sports Tak in an interview.
{{/usCountry}}The performances of Chahal and Kuldeep have dipped over the last year. While Kuldeep has hardly played games for India, Chahal has not featured in ODIs since November. The leg-spinner did play in the three T20Is for India against England at home, but returned figures of 1/44, 1/34 and 1/41.
"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 t, we were also given chances. The need of the team was to have an all-rounder at No. 7 position. I am happy even if I am not playing but the team is winning," Chahal added.