Kuldeep Yadav’s omission from India vs England T20Is, a worrying sign for ICC Champions Trophy?

It’s been nearly three months since Kuldeep Yadav featured for the India cricket team. The left-arm wrist spinner suffered a groin injury during the New Zealand Test series in October and had travelled to Germany for surgery. Subsequently, he missed the entire Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 and now isn’t a part of Team India’s squad for the England T20Is.

There hasn’t been an official confirmation from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), but Kuldeep is currently at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. The spinner wasn’t the only one who was looking to get back to full fitness. Mohammed Shami had been there as well, but the pacer has since played for Bengal and also found himself in the team against England. However, Kuldeep wasn’t in the squad for the 5-match series.

Team India has exactly one month to finalise their squad for the ICC Champions Trophy. The 8-team tournament starts on February 19, but the boards have to submit their final squads one week before the event starts, i.e., February 12. This means Kuldeep Yadav and the BCCI are in a race against time.

In general, groin injuries are tough to deal with for spinners. Unlike pacers, who are helped by big run-ups and usually have more strength in the upper body, spinners rely quite a lot on generating power through their run-up. A groin injury can hamper that. In Kuldeep’s case, who’s a wrist spinner, he needs a strong base.

Wrist spin generally requires more effort. Traditional spin doesn’t have the same toll on your body. This means having him at full fitness is more essential. One must add that Kuldeep Yadav has been a vital cog in Team India’s ODI machinery. Apart from two rough years (2020 and 2021), he’s always been excellent with the white ball.

Kuldeep Yadav’s ODI stats

Year	Matches	Wickets	Average	Economy	Strike Rate
2017	14	22	24.77	4.88	30.4
2018	19	45	17.77	4.64	22.9
2019	23	32	34.68	5.33	39.0
2020	5	6	53.83	6.46	50.0
2021	4	2	127.50	6.71	114.0
2022	8	12	27.75	4.95	33.5
2023	30	49	20.48	4.61	26.6
2024	3	4	25.50	3.40	45.0
Overall	106	172	26.00	4.99	31.2

You can easily say that he’s the best limited-overs spinner in the world. His numbers also reflect that. Not only is Kuldeep among the best strike bowlers but also incredibly economical. Being an expensive (economy) wicket-taker is quite common, but what Kuldeep does is quite rare.

One mustn’t forget that although Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel are there, neither are wicket-takers like Kuldeep. If Team India has to go into the ICC Champions Trophy without him, they might be in big trouble. You need a middle-overs striker in ODIs, and barring Kuldeep, no Indian spinner has that ability to chip away with unrelenting pressure.

India’s squad for England T20Is

Suryakumar Yadav (c), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel (vc), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk)