The absence of Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya has seen the emergence of several youngsters in the ongoing ODI series against Afghanistan.

The likes of Ishan Kishan, Gurnoor Brar, Harsh Dubey, Prince Yadav and Manav Suthar have already made their mark as India go into the final match in Chennai with the series already in their bag.

Shubman Gill has been in fine form and that has made batting look easy. Even Rohit Sharma’s failure to build on the starts hasn’t affected the batting. Amid all the positives, the form of Kuldeep Yadav is being debated. More specifically, there’s an effort to reignite the competitive spirit in him.

Kuldeep took 22 wickets in 15 ODIs till date from January 2025, and his returns in T20Is has been 22 from 14 matches.

A lean IPL season has put the focus back on the left-arm wrist spinner with newcomer Manav Suthar and off spinner Washington Sundar gaining more prominence in the solitary Test against Afghanistan.

“Look, the wickets aren’t always there and I thought he bowled really well the other night. As someone who hasn’t played a continuous string of games for a while... No real concerns about him,” assistant coach Ryan Ten Doeschate said on Friday.

“We always like to play a risk spinner or a mystery spinner. But certainly the way the game is evolving and the way guys go after the spin now, the onus is back on the spinner to almost reinvent himself from time to time.

“Kuldeep as well as other spinners, especially having (spin coach) Sairaj (Bahutule) now to work with, they can work on a lot of tactical things and game planning and trying to come up with new ideas. I think Kuldeep is travelling nicely,” he said.

India have added Harshit Rana to the squad but he is unlikely to be fielded.

Afghanistan has been poor in the series. Their brittle batting line-up stood exposed in the absence of Mohammad Nabi, who missed the second ODI with a viral infection.