In the second Test match of the series against Bangladesh in Mirpur, Dhaka, India clinched a thriller. This was team India's last international match of 2022 and they will be elated as they have ended the year on a pretty high note. Team India required 100 runs to win the match on the 4th day, but things kept on getting pretty tough for them. Bangladesh on the other hand kept on taking giant strides towards victory. They picked up Axar Patel, Rishabh Pant, and Jaydev Unadkat pretty quickly and had India under the pump.
Before India could know it, they were reduced to 74/7, but little did Bangladesh know about the intentions that Ravichandran Ashwin and Shreyas Iyer had. The duo stitched a partnership of 71 runs and guided India to a famous victory in Dhaka. On a turning track like the one in Mirpur, KL Rahul and the Indian team management were brutally trolled for dropping Kuldeep Yadav who was the man of the match in the first encounter between India and Bangladesh. KL Rahul on Sunday admitted that India missed the services of left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav in the second innings but said he has "no regret" about leaving him out of the final Test against Bangladesh. The decision to drop Kuldeep did not go down pretty well with many former Indian players and cricket experts. Sunil Gavaskar too lashed out at the Indian team management. Rahul has finally revealed the reasons behind dropping Kuldeep.
KL Rahul said:
If we had the impact player rule, like in the IPL, we'd have loved to have Kuldeep in the second innings. 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. 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 the right call. It was 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 most balanced team that we can.
India have now won 11 out of the 13 Test matches against Bangladesh. They will now take on Sri Lanka in January and will try to prepare themselves for the all-important ODI World Cup that will be played on their home soil next year.
