Chinaman Kuldeep Yadav's career has gone downhill after the ICC 2019 World Cup. He has been in and out from the team and hasn't performed consistently to be in contention of selection in all three formats.
After being discarded from the white-ball squad, Kuldeep couldn't get many opportunities even in Test cricket and he was finally left out of the squad for the upcoming UK tour.
The wrist-spinner talked about the impact of legendary MS Dhoni in his bowling and said he misses his guidance from behind the stumps.
"Sometimes I miss that guidance because he (Mahi) has great experience. He used to guide us behind the wicket, kept screaming! We miss his experience. Rishabh is there now, the more he plays, the more input he will give in the future. I always felt every bowler needs a partner who can respond from the other end," Kuldeep told The Indian Express.
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"When Mahibhai was there, I and Chahal were playing. Ever since Mahi bhai left, Chahal and I haven't played together. I played only a handful of games after Mahibhai left. I must have played ten-odd games. I had even taken a hat-trick. If you look at the performance as a whole, it will look pretty decent but if one breaks it up then my performance sometimes can look not up to the mark. One has to also look at the opposition we are playing against," he added.
India's head coach Ravi Shastri had called the 26-year-old India's first-choice spinner after Sydney Test back in 2019. But 2 years later, he wasn't considered for the playing eleven in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21 down under.
"I didn't play as many matches as I expected to, and somewhere I was low on confidence. When you are playing non-stop, players do feel high on confidence. The more one sits out the more it gets tougher. I felt a huge pressure on me when I played the Test against England in Chennai this February," Kuldeep said.
Kuldeep didn't get a game in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) before the tournament got suspended. The franchise preferred veteran spinner Harbhajan Singh, Sunil Narine, and Varun Chakaravarthy.
"I was especially (depressed) when I didn't find a place in my IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders. I wondered, 'am I that bad?' It's a team-management decision and it would be wrong to go and ask them. I wasn't played in Chennai during the IPL despite knowing it's a turner. I was a bit shocked but couldn't do anything," he added.
(With The Indian Express Inputs)
