New Delhi, Sep 5 (IANS) Legendary India batter Sunil Gavaskar has suggested India may opt to play left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav at number eight in their playing eleven for the upcoming Men’s T20 Asia Cup, rather than extending their batting line-up.
As per India’s squad captained by Suryakumar Yadav, they have covered every base, but who plays at number eight – a bowler who can provide some lofty boundary hitting – is still a mystery.
Ahead of their first Group A game against UAE in Dubai on September 10, India have to make a decision between extending the batting to number eight or accommodate an extra bowler, something which Gavaskar has backed.
“My feeling is that they might look to go with maybe an Axar Patel at seven and not extend the batting to eight and look for the bowlers. Maybe Kuldeep at eight and then nine, ten and eleven, your three fast bowlers.”
“So it actually makes it four fast bowlers when you include Hardik Pandya and two spinners as six bowlers in your team, which is always very good to have because sometimes if one bowler is having a bad day, you want somebody else who can come in and bowl for him.”
“So having six bowlers would be a very good idea. Maybe they might not go in with the extra batter at eight and that they will look at somebody who can come in and bowl well, so somebody like Kuldeep could get an opportunity,” said Gavaskar to IANS in a select virtual group interaction organized by Sony Sports Network, the broadcasters of 2025 Asia Cup.
Kuldeep’s last appearance for India in T20Is came during the 2024 T20 World Cup final, which India won by seven runs against South Africa to win the trophy in Barbados. Though he’s picked 69 wickets in 40 T20Is, Kuldeep did not play in India’s drawn 2-2 Test series in England.
With Axar present and Varun Chakaravarthy a strong starter, Gavaskar feels chances of Kuldeep being included in India’s playing eleven for the game against UAE depends on variety of batters in the opposition’s line-up.
“I think it will depend to a great extent on the batting that he’s got to be bowling to. Like, what kind of batters in the opposition team, do they have left handers, or right handers? So it’s depending a great deal on that. I think Varun Chakaravarthy could pip him to the position in the first match.”
“But my feeling is that maybe they’ll really look to go for Kuldeep, and then look to bring in Varun Chakaravarthy in the other matches in case the batting is doing well and maybe leave out a fast bowler.”
“Or maybe even now they’ll play Varun, Kuldeep, Axar as the three spinners, play two new ball bowlers and Hardik Pandya as the third new ball bowler. So they still have six bowlers and I think maybe they might do that as well,” he added.
The 17th edition of the Asia Cup will also marks India’s first T20I outing since winning the home series against England by 4-1 in January. With the Asia Cup a crucial platform to fine-tune preparations for T20 World Cup title defence at home in 2026, Gavaskar believes India would like to zero on their finishers and death bowlers in the multi-nation tournament.
“It will probably be who can be the finisher for them. That is something that at the moment, they are not very certain about because they have got so many options. They have got Rinku Singh and Shivam Dube as a finisher. Then Hardik Pandya and Tilak Verma can play the role of a finisher. So they will have to zero in on about two or three of them for their squad for the World Cup.”
“Then I think the death bowling, the last four overs, obviously Jasprit Bumrah will bowl two of them. But who is going to be bowling those other two, that is an area that they will be looking to get some idea from this tournament. So those are the two areas that they have to really sharpen up on.”
Watch the highly anticipated 2025 Asia Cup from September 9 on Sony Sports Ten 1, Ten 5, Ten 3 Hindi, Ten 4 Tamil & Ten 4 Telugu channels, and SonyLIV.
–IANS
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