The last few months have been extremely tough for Kuldeep Yadav. Not only has he been completely out of sorts in the international scene with underwhelming performances, he has also spent a lot of time on the sidelines – a clear sign of the management’s lack of faith in him.

Spending time away from the game does hurt a player’s confidence, revealed Kuldeep who made his comeback in Test cricket after two years in February against England. Though he did pick up two wickets, he was omitted from the lion’s share of games. The chinaman bowler hasn’t played a T20 match for India in almost 16 months.

“When you are playing non-stop, players do feel high on confidence. The more one sits out the more it gets tougher. I felt a huge pressure on me when I played the Test against England in Chennai this February. Due to Covid, there was nothing happening, so things got really tougher even more last year,” Kuldeep was quoted as saying in News18.

“I did, sometimes I felt, ‘what is going on?’. It was difficult times. Sometimes, the mind says, ‘ab shayad woh Kuldeep nahi rahe.’ There were days when you feel serving drinks and being on the bench is for the best and then but there are days you don’t want to be in that place,” he stated.

And to add salt to injury, Kuldeep Yadav has also been out of the plans of his IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders. In fact, the spinner hasn’t played a single match in IPL 2021 which of course, came to a quick halt because of the COVID outbreak in camps. He was also left with several questions when KKR did not even use him for the Chennai leg of their IPL schedule.

“I was especially when I didn’t find a place in my IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders. I wondered, ‘am I that bad?’ It’s a team-management decision and it would be wrong to go and ask them. I wasn’t played in Chennai during the IPL despite knowing it’s a turner. I was a bit shocked but couldn’t do anything,” Kuldeep added.