ENG vs IND Test series | Will Kuldeep’s long wait end at Old Trafford?

 As India trained at the Beckenham County Ground on a cloudy Thursday morning, after a two-day break, Kuldeep Yadav bowled to Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Easwaran in one of the nets for about an hour. Not in a stretch, but at frequent intervals.

Since landing in England nearly a month ago, this has been Kuldeep’s routine — turn up for training, bowl in the nets, and then warm the bench as the morning of the match dawns. He had to wait in Leeds, then in Birmingham, and as India went with Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar at Lord’s, all the left-arm wrist-spinner could do was train alone at the Nursery Ground in between the sessions.

But with some sort of turn expected at Old Trafford, will Kuldeep get his chance?

Farokh Engineer, who has been a resident of Manchester for years and knows the conditions well, believes that India should bring Kuldeep in and leave Nitish Kumar Reddy out. Former England captain Allan Lamb, however, has a slightly different take on the matter.

Knowing the Old Trafford surface inside out, Lamb believes that Washington should make way for Kuldeep. “There’s one thing lacking in the Indian team. They do not have a [specialist] spinner. They gotta be playing Kuldeep. At Old Trafford, it does turn a bit, and I would have [played] him straight away,” Lamb told The Hindu.

In the last couple of games, India played Washington and Jadeja, keeping their all-round skills in mind. The former claimed key wickets at Lord’s while the latter fought a lone battle with the bat in the second innings.

“Washington and Jadeja are all-rounders, but they are more focused on their batting. I understand why India picked them because they were worried about their batting at the beginning. But now that’s not the case, the decision not to play Kuldeep surprises me,” Lamb said.

Ever since making his debut in March 2017 against Australia in Dharamshala, Kuldeep has featured in just 13 Tests across nine series, and went on to bag the Player-of-the-Match on a couple of occasions. While at home, he had to warm the bench due to the presence of R. Ashwin, Jadeja and Axar Patel for the longest time, on overseas tours, the team management’s decision to often not play more than one spinner meant either Jadeja or Ashwin made the cut.

With Ashwin walking into retirement and Jasprit Bumrah not available for more than three games, there were chances of the team management using Kuldeep as the specialist spinner in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.

However, that hasn’t been the case so far.

Despite the fact that Kuldeep is not limited by conditions and has the ability to provide breakthroughs at crucial junctures, the team management looked beyond him in flat surfaces in Leeds and Birmingham.

But now, with the series on the line and the Old Trafford strip expected to aid the spinners a bit, will India finally play Kuldeep? Time will tell.