Fresh from his match-winning present in India’s 188-run win within the Chattogram Test, Kuldeep was benched for an additional seamer in Jaydev Unadkat, a choice which was slammed by the likes of Sunil Gavaskar.
“I don’t regret the decision. It was a right decision. If you look at the wickets, our fast bowlers too have taken many wickets and they had a lot of assistance. There was a lot of inconsistent bounce,” Rahul stated defending his determination on the post-match media interplay.
Struggling at 74 for 7 whereas chasing a difficult 145 on a troublesome fourth-day observe, India survived a scare as Ravichandran Ashwin and Shreyas Iyer pulled off an unbelievable three-wicket chase with an unbroken eighth wicket partnership of 71 runs.
“We took the decision keeping in mind our experience of playing here in the ODIs. We saw there’s assistance for both spin and bounce. It was to have a balanced side and I think it was a right call,” he added.
Kuldeep had made a spectacular comeback after 22 months, returning with a match-haul of eight wickets and in addition scored a valiant 40 in an important lower-order partnership with Ashwin. He was additionally adjudged the ‘Man of the Match’ of their opening Test at Chattogram.
“It was really a tough call, knowing that he won us the last Test. But seeing the pitch a day before the game, we felt that there would be assistance for both fast bowlers and seamers and keeping that in mind we wanted to play the best and balanced team that we can,” Rahul stated.
The crew felt Kuldeep’s absence particularly in Bangladesh’s second essay when India with an important first innings lead of 87 runs struggled to bowl out the house facet.
Bangladesh have been 70 for 4 however went on to make 231.
In hindsight, Rahul stated he would have liked to have Kuldeep bowl within the second innings if he had the choice of the ‘Impact Player‘ rule that might make its debut in subsequent 12 months’s IPL.
“Ideally, if the Impact Player rule was there — like in the IPL — I would have definitely loved to bring Kuldeep in the second innings,” Rahul stated.
The Impact Player of ‘Super Sub’ rule, which made its debut within the Big Bash 2020 and was additionally seen within the Syed Mushtaq Ali home T20s this season, means every crew could make one substitution in the middle of a match.
Each crew will submit 4 substitutes on the toss and any one in all them can are available as ‘Impact Player’.
The two-Test sequence proved to be disastrous for Rahul (57 runs, common: 14.25) and Virat Kohli (45 runs; 15.00) however the stand-in skipper blamed it on the short transition from white ball to crimson ball cricket.
“When you play all three formats, it is a bit tricky to jump from one format to another. Personally, it takes a bit of time to get back into the groove and understand, to get your mind back to what you were doing right.
“Each format is a problem on how rapidly you’ll be able to adapt… It’s a problem that’s one thing that excites me.
“Obviously performance in this series was not great. I can accept that. I tried my best and it didn’t work. I can look forward and see what I can do better next time,” he added.
Blaming it on their tight schedule, Rahul stated: “Unfortunately our schedules are too tight for some of the players who play all formats to do that and get used to too quickly.
“But that is the problem for us. Ideally, we’d have needed much more time between crimson ball and white ball to get used to, get our thoughts again to play crimson ball cricket and develop a bit of little bit of endurance and carry out.”
Iyer had a fruitful series as he averaged 101 with two fifties. He was the second leading run-getter with 202 runs behind Cheteshwar Pujara (222) and his assuring presence, especially in the second innings calmed things down.
“He has been across the crew for a very long time. I’m so glad for him, he grabbed the chance with each arms. The approach he performed right now was phenomenal. He made it look very easy,” Rahul stated.