Kuldeep Should Be Playing Regularly: Harbhajan

'If I was with the team, I would pick bowlers who I feel can pick wickets and win matches for me with the ball.'

Kuldeep Yadav's non-inclusion in all the three ODIs in England recently sparked a lot of debate.

The left-arm wrist spinner has struggled to consistently find a place in India's white ball teams despite his ability to pick wickets in the middle overs.

The team management under Head Coach Gautam Gambhir has preferred to pack the ODI and T20 teams with spin all-rounders, largely restricting Kuldeep to the bench.

Spin great Harbhajan Singh, who was part of India's World Cup winning teams in 2007 (T20 World Cup) and 2011 (ODI World Cup) is unhappy at the treatment being meted out to Kuldeep, whom he considers as a genuine match-winner with the ball across formats.

Kuldeep played a key role with the ball in India's successive title triumphs in white ball cricket -- the T20 World Cup triumph in 2024 and the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025 -- picking up 10 wickets and seven wickets respectively. He also excelled with the ball in the 2023 ODI World Cup when he bagged 15 wickets in 11 matches at an economy rate of 4.45 when India finished runners up to Australia.

But he has featured in only eight out of 15 ODIs India have played since the ICC Champions Trophy in March last year. Despite being named player of the series in the three-match ODI series against South Africa in December, with nine wickets from three games in a series dominated by batters, Kuldeep continued to warm the bench in England.

"Kuldeep is a frontline spinner who can win you matches on his own with the ball," Harbhajan tells Rediff's Harish Kotian in the concluding segment of an exclusive interview.

• Part 1: 'Saransh Can Be Top Off-Spinner'

You worked with a few emerging off-spinners during the camp in Bengaluru in March. Has the approach of the spinners changed in recent years especially with T20 cricket taking over the game in a large way?

It all depends on a spinner's mindset. It takes you into a completely different zone. A healthy mindset can keep you balanced and stable and you know exactly what to do in a particular session.

As a bowler, you can't think that you just need to contain the batter saying 'this pitch is flat, I can't get him out'. You need to understand the pitch and conditions and figure out how you can get the best of our bowling.

Conditions will never change to your liking, the spinner has to adapt to those conditions, whether you are playing in Mumbai, Bengaluru or Chandigarh.

During your playing days, India had some very accomplished batters of spin bowling. But in the last few years our batters have struggled against spin at home. What has been the major issue?

Playing spin is an art, but I am sorry to say the kind of the pitches we have been playing, even the best of artists will flop. We had so many Tests which finished inside three days and that is not good for the game.

We talk nowadays that Indian batters can't play against spin. But you can only play against spin if it is natural spin. You can see spinners bowling with the new ball and at time even he doesn't know which ball is turning or which is going straight. Some of the pitches have been unplayable.

Even the best of batters will struggle to survive, and even a part-time spinner can get them out because it is not the bowler's skill which is getting them the wickets but the pitch which is getting them the wickets.

Even the great batters against spin like V V S Laxman or Sachin Tendulkar will struggle on these kind of pitches. The batters will struggle to read because some deliveries will turn sharply while some will go straight. The pitches are so poor that you can see puff of dust where the ball lands right from the start.

How can you expect the batters score runs on these type of pitches? That is the biggest reason why we see our batters struggling against spin in the last 8 to 10 years. If you see batters like Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane or Cheteshwar Pujara their averages in home Tests have come down in the last 10 years whereas their record is better outside India.

You can accept if one match in a few series ends in two days but nowadays almost all Tests finish in two or three days.

'The key for a spinner is to keep things simple'

You said that a spinner should never get into a defensive mindset when bowling. Nowadays batters have become a lot more positive even in domestic red ball cricket. Has that impacted the spinner's mindset in recent years?

That is what I am exactly pointing to. The batters were hitting fours and sixes before also but the game has become more faster now. A lot of the batters today have no defence, they have no patience to spend a full day at the wicket and score a century like we used to see in the past in the Ranji Trophy.

But as a bowler, you are always there in the game. You should set your field accordingly and still hunt for wickets rather than thinking he will look to attack me. The bowler must not worry about getting hit for boundaries.

In the past also, we had aggressive batters who loved attacking spinners like Kevin Pietersen, Matthew Hayden, A B de Villiers, Adam Gilchrist and others.

As a spinner, you should think right, you should be able to get a balance of when to attack and when not too... that balance will help you succeed.

The way you are thinking, that energy will show in the way you bowl. That is why when you are in great rhythm you feel you can take a wicket every ball, but sometimes you don't get a single wicket because you are trying too many things.

The key for a spinner is that even when bowling in your best rhythm you have to keep things simple.

The mindset of a spinner, whether in domestic cricket or international cricket, should be take on the challenge when you are bowling against batters who like to attack.

The spinner needs to figure out the best plan to bowl against that batter, how to get his wicket, where to set the field for the same.

The spinner always need to think right, they need to think wickets and they need to create enough pressure to force the batters to play the risky shots.

I remember in my time, spinners were desperate to see the batters to hit shots in the air, but nowadays the batters are playing the lofted shot every third or fourth ball so as a spinner you are always there in the game because that gives you a chance to pick up wickets.

But everyone has their own way of thinking. A good spinner will look at it as an opportunity to get wickets and not take a step back if the batter is attacking.

Do you feel that the value of a specialist spinner is going down, with preference given to spinners, who can also score runs down the order?

Yes, this is happening. That is why we are seeing this today 'aadha spinner, aadha batter' (half spinner, half batter). The only thing I want to say is that if you are able to able to spin the ball, then why not bowl 16 overs instead of six overs and become a complete spinner? Why just looking to do a bit of both, a little bit of bowling and little of batting.

Especially in Test cricket, you need to have a proper bowler, a full time spinner or pace bowler.

Are specialist spinners becoming extinct?

It is not happening but there are attempts to make that happen. Cricket is played differently in every era, in this era people who are running the show think that this is the best way to play in the team, little bit of batting and little bit of bowling.

In my view, in Test cricket you need proper specialist bowlers else you will find it difficult if you opt for part-timers.

Whatever runs the bowlers score that should be seen as a bonus. If you see in the latter part of my Test career, I got two Test centuries, but my main job was always bowling.

Something like that is happening to Kuldeep Yadav, who didn't get a single game in England despite being part of the ODI team.

Kuldeep should be playing regularly for India. He is a frontline spinner who can win you matches on his own with the ball. That is the way I think. But everyone thinks differently and in every era cricket is played differently.

If I was with the team, I would pick bowlers who I feel can pick wickets and win matches for me with the ball.

What is your take on the pool of spinners in India? Having conducted the camp, do you see good off-spinners coming through in India in the next few years?

Saransh Jain is very good, he was among the best of the lot at the camp. There is another young spinner I like -- Himanshu Singh from Mumbai, a tall spinner. I would say he has got the skills but he needs to learn and he will learn by playing more games in different conditions, on different pitches against different batters.

There were some other young spinners as well who were very good like Anmoljeet Singh from Punjab. We need to continue to work with these young spinners and BCCI should organise such camps on a regular basis.

We have Anil bhai (Kumble), then you got (Ravichandran) Ashwin, I am there, we former spinners are ready to come forward and help the next generation of Indian spinners.

It was nice of (Head of Cricket at the National Cricket Academy) V V S Laxman to ask me if I could do a camp. I immediately said yes because I enjoy being around young spinners, who are keen to learn from my experience. I felt those four days were like meditation for me. I also learnt a lot from them as to how the spinners are operating in today's times.

Has the rapid growth of T20 cricket hindered the development of quality spinners in the last few years, with more focus on runs than wickets to please the spectators?

T20 cricket has obviously not allowed the spinners to bowl they want to. But you still have some spinners who still look to spin the ball, who look to beat the batters in the air, they are still getting wickets.

But as I said earlier the mindset has changed. Even though you are playing T20 cricket, your style of bowling should not change much. You can do a few adjustments accordingly but the basics should remain the same.

The impact of T20 cricket is so much that nowadays youngsters are not looking forward to becoming spinners. As you see in the last few years, you will get some players who can bowl a bit and bat a bit.

Talking about off-spinners, we have not seen any good off-spinner breaking out in the last few years.

Youngsters don't want to become spinners. If they want, they can take on the challenge and become good off-spinners, but nobody is showing the will.

I also played in the IPL for around 15 years and I also bowled off-spin. In those days too, the batters were hitting sixes and fours, but I never got scared or backed away from the challenge.