India stand-in captain KL Rahul on Sunday defended the decision to drop Kuldeep Yadav from the squad for the second Test in Dhaka.
Kuldeep Yadav was dropped in place of seamer Jaydev Unadkat even after the chinaman picked 8 wickets in the first Test at Chattogram, including a five-wicket haul, and scored 40 crucial runs with the bat in India's 188-run win.
Cricket pundits and fans were furious to see the team management's decision.
"I don't regret the decision. It was the 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 said defending his decision at the post-match media interaction," Rahul said at the post-match press conference after India's 3-wicket win in Dhaka.
Rahul went on to add that it was a touch decision to drop Kuldeep after his match-winning comeback to Test cricket.
"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.
"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 said.
On hindsight, Rahul said he would have loved to have Kuldeep bowl in the second innings if he had the option of the 'Impact Player' rule that would make its debut in next year'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 said.
India pull off a miracle on Christmas
Ravichandran Ashwin scored a memorable 42 not out while batting at No. 9 to help India chase down 145, after the visitors were down 7 wickets for 74 runs in the final innings.
The off-spinning all-rounder joined forces with Shreyas Iyer to help India cross the finish line after Bangladesh left them reeling at 74 for 7 in chase of 145 at the Shere-E-Bangla stadium on day 4.
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