Ind vs Aus: Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna IN as India look to avoid a clean sweep at Sydney

India suffered back-to-back defeats in the India vs Australia ODI tour, bringing in Kuldeep Yadav and Prasidh Krishna at Sydney to replace the likes of Nitish Kumar Reddy and Arshdeep Singh. 

In the last game at Adelaide, India faced their first-ever defeat on Adelaide soil, though several Indian players, Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar, performed commendably with the bat and ball. 

Varun Aaron on Kuldeep Yadav's repeated exclusion

Former Indian pacer Varun Aaron had advised Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir on the inclusion of spinner Kuldeep Yadav. He gave his opinion while speaking to broadcasters. 

"Kuldeep Yadav should have come in from game one. You will have to sacrifice a batsman. Obviously, you can't play two fast bowlers in Australia. That's that. That would be a no-go. But Kuldeep is somebody who will get you wickets. He will make up for those runs which you didn't score. And also, the moment you have one batter short, I feel batsmen in general would take more responsibility on themselves and try to dig in deeper because they know they don't have that cushion at the back," Varun said.

"It's not that India have never played with seven batters before. They have in the past, and I think Kuldeep would be a great addition because he would get you wickets in the middle. And today again, India were depending on the batsmen to make mistakes, rather than to get wickets in the middle. But they didn't really get the batsman out, if that makes sense. They're two very different things," he added.

Kuldeep Yadav finally handed a spot in the XI; Harshit Rana promoted as batter

Kuldeep Yadav replacing Nitish Kumar Reddy suggests that India will now go with a batter less than before, as Kuldeep Yadav, the spinner, will be playing as a specialist bowler only. Reddy did not have a large impact with the bat so far, as he played a cameo of 19 runs in the first game and followed it with 8 runs in game 2. 

Harshit Rana's stupendous role with the bat and his commendable innings helped him be promoted to no. 8, and hence, it gave Gautam Gambhir the guts to go in with four specialist bowlers, exclusive of all-rounders. 

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