Want to use stronger word but dropping Kuldeep is unbelievable: Sunil Gavaskar

New Delhi: Spinner Kuldeep Yadav's surprise exclusion from the playing XI in the second Test against Bangladesh drew strong criticism from the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, who has termed the axe after a stellar show in the series opener as "unbelievable".

The 28-year-old left-arm wrist spinner had career-best figures of 5/40 in the first innings in the opening Test at Chattogram. He backed it up with three wickets in the second innings for a career-best match figures of 8/113 as India defeated Bangaldesh by 188 runs.

However, he was replaced by Saurashtra seam bowler Jaydev Unadkat in the second Test, which got under way at Mirpur on Thursday, making Gavaskar, former Test bowler Dodda Ganesh and former women's captain Anjum Chopra wonder why the team management had taken such a decision.

"Dropping a Man of the Match, that is unbelievable. That's the only word I can use and it's a gentle word. I would like to use quite stronger words, but it's unbelievable that you left out a 'man of the match', who got eight out of the 20 wickets," Gavaskar said while commentating on Sony Sports Network, the broadcasters of the series.

"You have got two other spinners (Axar Patel and R. Ashwin). So surely, one of the other spinners could have been dropped.

But this guy, who took eight wickets should have played today with due respect to what the pitch looks like," Gavaskar said, countering skipper KL Rahul's argument that the 22-yard strip looked "confusing".

Ganesh wondered why such treatment was being meted out to Kuldeep.