Former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has slammed team management for Kuldeep Yadav’s omission in the third ODI against England at Lord’s on Sunday. Kuldeep didn’t play a single game in the ODI series, which surprised a lot of experts.

Yadav was also not picked in the first two ODIs against England as the spin duo of Washington Sundar and Axar Patel were picked ahead of him. It is clear that the management is backing spin and seam-bowling all-rounders ahead of Yadav. Since July 2024, Kuldeep has featured in 38 games out of 103 matches across all formats for India.

India made three changes to their playing XI as KL Rahul, Prince Yadav and Arshdeep Singh were added to the team.

Kuldeep has scalped 194 ODI wickets in 121 matches at an average of 27.05 and thus has an impressive record in the 50-over format.

Ravichandran Ashwin said on his YouTube Channel, “Kuldeep has picked out around 170 wickets from 120 matches. If you look at the wrist spinners across the world, he is even better than Adam Zampa. We consider Adam Zampa one of the better white-ball spinners. He is ahead of all of them.”

The wrist spinner could not find a place in the team in the third ODI despite the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, who was ruled out with an knee injury. Ashwin said it shows that the team management doesn’t have confidence in Kuldeep.

“Earlier, the narrative was that Kuldeep Yadav was not very good with the bat. So, we need an all-rounder at No. 8 for the batting depth, be it a spin-bowling all-rounder or Harshit Rana. This is a valid point. But in this team, where you don’t need the batting of No. 8, you went with bowling. In that team, despite Jasprit Bumrah’s absence, if you are not taking Kuldeep Yadav, it means the team management’s confidence in Kuldeep Yadav is very low,” he added.

Ashwin highlighted that Kuldeep Yadav deserves to be India’s number one spinner.