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Cricket Players'You feel you are ready to play but management doesn’t feel so': KKR's Kuldeep Yadav was shocked with Chennai-leg snub
The stage was set for Kuldeep Yadav to showcase his talent and regain the lost confidence during the Chennai leg of IPL 2021 but Kolkata Knight Riders looked elsewhere.
Life can be unfair at times and the situation is no different for a Team India cricketer. It takes years of hard work and perseverance to get to the top and represent this cricket-frenzy nation at the international stage but it only takes a rough phase, which at times lasts only a few matches, to plummet to the bottom. The competition is ruthless and that's the harsh reality.
The story of Kuldeep Yadav's downfall bears testament to that merciless reality. For someone who was once India's frontline spin bowler, the downward spiral can be a tough pill to digest. And rightfully so.
The India and Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) spinner recently revealed that he was left surprised by not being picked for the Chennai leg during IPL 2021. The Chepauk track, as the world witnessed, provided immense assistance to spinners and made the batsmen's life difficult. KKR preferred Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine as their main spinners but that didn't yield the desired result as KKR lost two of their games in the Southern India city.
While speaking to Crictracker, the leg-spinner commented that he was raring to go, that and "it was shocking" to see the management loo elsewhere.
“It’s hard to say that I mean (on being benched by KKR). Sometimes you feel you are ready to play but management doesn’t feel so. They think someone is better than you and they also think about the combination. These things happen in franchise cricket a lot. I thought I was ready to play in Chennai in IPL 2021 but it didn’t happen and it was shocking.”
Before IPL 2021 was indefinitely postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis in India and multiple positive cases within numerous franchise bio-bubbles, Kuldeep did not feature in a single game. Last season as well, in the UAE, the 26-year-old played just five matches; bagging one wicket and returning with an average of 92.
That's where his downfall began. Kuldeep, despite being in the Test squad for the Australian series Down Under, did not get a single game. Fast forward to the four-match Test series at home against England, he got a chance to play the second Test in Chennai. He picked up 2 wickets in that encounter, which also happened to be first Test since India's 2018/19 tour of Australia.
The journey to the first team will not be an easy one for the Uttar Pradesh bowler as he received another setback after being ignored for India's tour of England, which includes the World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand and a five-match Test series against the hosts.
He can now hope to find a seat on the plane to Sri Lanka, where India will play three ODIs and as many T20Is in July. Since the main team will be in England, the second-string team will consist of a few senior pros. Maybe, that could be the start of Kuldeep's road to redemption.
