What may come as an end of road for Ashwin and Jadeja, India captain Virat Kohli hints to play Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal in the upcoming test series against England, considering their dominant show in the limited overs format in UK.
Kuldeep made his test debut in Dharamshala against Australia and picked four wickets in first innings. He has played one more test since then but Chahal is due to make his test appearance.
“Anything is possible with the selections for Tests and there might be a few surprises. Kuldeep is making a strong case for himself and so is Chahal. And looking at the way, the English batsmen have struggled against them, we might be tempted to do it,” said Kohli after first ODI.
“But the focus now is winning the next two games. Especially the next game, looking at it from the series perspective. The weather has been lovely. It has been very welcoming. The crowd support has been brilliant. The tour is really long and there is some tough cricket ahead of us which we are looking forward to,” the skipper added.
Kuldeep and Chahal were preferred over the experienced spin duo of Ashwin and Jadeja and it looks certain that they will lose their spot in the tests too.
Kohli has hinted that Chahal and Kuldeep may be used in the 5 day format as well.
“Those wrist spinners in the middle overs are going to be tricky. Given more overs and more time in the middle, they become even more lethal. Kuldeep was outstanding. To give away 25 runs and pick up 6 wickets on that kind of a wicket, I don’t think I have seen a better spell of bowling in ODIs of late.
“After that, Rohit batted very long and finished the game for us. We made a tactical decision (at Bristol) looking at the dimensions of the ground and the breeze flowing into the shorter boundary.
“When it comes to longer game, you need players to make an impact. These two wrist spinners have been making the difference since they have come in. They did it in South Africa in the middle overs. They remain as our key weapons,” Kohli added.
