For almost a decade, Kuldeep Yadav has been one of the oddest stories in Indian Test cricket. He made his debut in 2017 and has played just 18 Tests since. For a bowler who is something of a unicorn in the modern game, those numbers are underwhelming, to say the least.
Kuldeep is not your conventional wrist-spinner. A left-arm leg spinner is a rarity in international cricket. A left-arm leggie in Test cricket? Even more so. Yet, for all his natural gift, India have never quite given him the kind of sustained run that allows a Test career to truly take off.
Perhaps there was a good reason for that once.
For years, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were the undisputed spin twins of India's Test side. They were not merely India's first-choice options; they were structural pillars of the team, offering runs alongside wickets and allowing successive managements to build XI combinations around their all-round value.
But Ashwin has retired . Jadeja is 37. The landscape has fundamentally shifted.
And that should make Kuldeep's place in India's Test plans a far more pressing question than it has ever been.
The problem, as always, is that it is easier to make the argument for Kuldeep than it is to actually fit him into the XI.
Under Gautam Gambhir, India have repeatedly shown a preference for batting depth. The extra batter and the all-rounder have almost always been preferred over a second specialist bowler. Kuldeep, meanwhile, has never been viewed as someone who can replace what Jadeja or Ashwin provided with the bat.
That has left Kuldeep stuck in an awkward middle ground: good enough to remain in and around the squad, but never trusted enough to become a permanent fixture in the playing XI.
He did not play a single Test during India's tour of England at the start of this World Test Championship cycle, despite a series where the Indian team operated like a revolving door. It is precisely this lack of continuity that has prevented Kuldeep's Test career from ever truly taking off.
Former India spinner Murali Kartik, speaking on Kuldeep's prolonged wait for a consistent run, admitted that even he struggles to understand the management's hesitation.
For Kartik, the issue goes deeper than just match counts. It is about the psychological weight a cricketer carries when they are constantly shuffled in and out of the side.
"I can tell you from personal experience, if you don't have that run, just ask any cricketer. When you're in and out, in and out, there is no continuity. There is no real good feeling at all," Kartik told *India Today*. "You don't know why you're around, why you're in. And it creates a lot of doubts in your own mind."
That is perhaps the defining frustration of Kuldeep's career: every time he earns an opportunity, he is forced to prove his worth all over again from scratch.
"You know you're good. That's why you're in the 15. But if you're in and out of the playing XI, it creates a lot of doubts. That's why I said he needs to be handled well," Kartik said.
There is also a persistent belief that picking Kuldeep automatically forces a compromise on batting depth. Kartik does not see it through such a reductive lens.
"He is not a rabbit with the bat. We have seen him as a nightwatchman who can spend a long amount of time at the crease," Kartik noted. "He does not have the hitting of Jadeja and Ashwin, so I would not look at him that way."
It is an important distinction. Kuldeep will never replace Jadeja's lower-order runs. That does not mean he cannot replicate, and at times surpass, what Jadeja offers with the ball.
If India are serious about reshaping their Test side for the road ahead, that might be a trade-off worth making. And the timing of this Sri Lanka series could not be better.
India currently sit fifth in the World Test Championship standings, navigating a period of significant transition under Gambhir. With Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ashwin all stepping away, the management must identify the next core group capable of forming the spine of the Test team.
Kuldeep, at 31, is not a novice. He has been around the international circuit long enough to understand its demands. More importantly, he has hovered around the periphery of India's Test setup for nearly ten years without ever being given the runway to test his ceiling.
Sri Lanka offers the ideal stage to change that narrative.
The tracks are tailored to bring spin into play early, offering the exact kind of drift, turn, and bounce that rewards a wrist-spinner willing to attack through the air. On paper, Kuldeep's skill set makes him a primary match-winner in these conditions. CAN KULDEEP DELIVER IN SRI LANKA?
But the larger question is not just whether Kuldeep can deliver in Sri Lanka. It is what happens if he does.
A strong series here gives India a clear blueprint heading into their home stretch, where a high-stakes clash against Australia awaits later in the WTC cycle. More than tactics, however, it gives Kuldeep the one asset that has eluded him throughout his career: faith.
As Kartik pointed out, players only become match-winners when they are treated as such.
"You want a bit of consistency for him. As a bowler or any player, you want to be treated with consistency. If they tell you that you are a match-winner, that's when you prepare as one."
Ashwin and Jadeja flourished under Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma because they were given that explicit backing.
"If you handle Kuldeep Yadav well, you will get the best out of him," Kartik added.
That is the true test facing India's management starting in Galle.
Kuldeep does not need favors, nor does he need a guaranteed spot regardless of form. What he needs, and what he has earned, is a genuine opportunity to fail, learn, and adapt without the looming anxiety that a single off-session will send him back to the bench.
For nearly a decade, he has been India's odd man out.
With Ashwin gone, Jadeja 37 and India rebuilding for the future, Sri Lanka could finally be the place where India stop asking whether Kuldeep is good enough for Test cricket and start finding out just how good he can be. - Ends
Kingshuk loves football, breathes cricket and lives to travel. He is in a love-hate relationship with Barcelona and Sunrisers Hyderabad and likes to bowl military medium.
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