Why Kuldeep Yadav should be picked ahead of Ashwin on the England tour

As the England tour approaches, it is time for India to get all their first-choice players fit and match-ready. With current England side fresh from an Ashes humiliation and series defeats against New Zealand and Pakistan, this series seems to be the best chance for India to defeat the Englishmen in their own backyard.

Bowling will play a key role in determining India’s success on the tour. With the English conditions being seam-friendly, India will bank on seamers to do the job. Like batting, bowling too is all about partnerships, supporting each other in tandem. Spinners might not be playing a decisive factor this series.

Generally, you don’t expect spinners to pick 10 out of 20 wickets on English soil to win you a Test match, but the way they build pressure at the other end enables the fast bowlers to trouble batsmen. For India to win the Test series in England, spinners need to do to England what Moeen Ali did to India in 2014.

Ravichandran Ashwin seems to be the automatic choice as the genuine spinner. However, considering the success that Kuldeep has enjoyed in recent times, it would be unfair to totally rule out Kuldeep’s chance of featuring in the playing XI.

Making his debut in March 2017 against Australia, Kuldeep has made a major impact in the 2 Test matches he has played for India so far picking 9 wickets. In his first-class career, Kuldeep has picked 90 wickets from 24 games at 31 apiece

In this article, we will see why Kuldeep should be picked ahead of Ashwin in England Tests.

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Ability to turn the ball on any surface

Not too long ago, skipper Virat Kohli came up with the statement that said that Kuldeep and Chahal could turn the ball on any surface This is the level of confidence that Kohli has got in his two young leg-spinners.

While the pitches in South Africa were dry and hard, Kuldeep managed to bamboozle Proteas on their home soil, something that no Indian spinner has ever done before. India needs a bowler like Kuldeep in English conditions who can turn the ball enough to beat the batsmen, for, without turn, spinners on English surfaces are easy pickings.

Mystery element

Everything about Kuldeep Yadav is a mystery at the moment. The fact that he is a chinaman bowler and there are very few of this type, his googly being one of the hardest to read off the hand and also many of the batsmen from the current England team haven’t faced him before are the factors that work in his favor.

Also, he is still into the early days of his international career and not every team has done a lot of analysis on his bowling. England are traditionally weak against leg-spin and this England team, which is short on confidence already, will not find it any easy to decipher mystery leg-spin. A left-arm leg-spinner with a surprise element will only add to their agony.

Wicket-taking abilities

Ravichandran Ashwin might be a great bowler in sub-continent. But his overseas figures and nowhere near par. With only 31 wickets from 11 Tests at an exorbitantly high average of 50 in non-Asian countries (except the Caribbean), he has found it hard to trouble batsmen. Outside Asia, Ashwin is nothing more than a defensive bowler who can be banked on only to keep the runs down and not pick up as many wickets as he does in the sub-continent.

Kuldeep, on the other hand, has always looked like picking loads of wickets whenever he has played for India, irrespective of the conditions. If given a chance, Kuldeep could surprise us like he did in the South Africa ODI series where no one expected him to be so good. It is certainly worth giving him a chance, at least to fail!

No muck with the bat

There is no doubt that Ashwin is a genuine all-rounder in the Indian test team at the moment. However, in the recent times, he has gone off the boil with the bat little bit. Since 2017, Ashwin has scored only 329 runs from 13 Tests at an average of 18 going past the score of 50 only once.

When it comes to batting, Kuldeep is no muck. A first-class average of 28 with a century and 5 fifties in a little career shows he has potential. He is certainly capable of hanging around and scoring those useful 30s and 40s. He might not be an apt replacement for Ashwin with the bat, but Indian batting won’t suffer so much after swapping Ashwin with Kuldeep. After all, as they say, if your top 6 don’t do the job with the bat, you don’t expect your lower order and tail to do it for you.

Considering this, it is clear that Kuldeep could be India's trump card as well as a secret weapon. It is all up to the captain and the team management to take a chance with this young lad and show faith in him!