'He used to be made to sit at home' - Md Kaif makes glaring remark, opines on how KKR treated Kuldeep Yadav

Kuldeep Yadav had a memorable debut for the Delhi Capitals as the wily wrist-spinner returned with a match-winning spell of 4-0-18-3 as the one-timerunners-up beat five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) in their IPL 2022 opening game on March 27 (Sunday) at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai.

Kuldeep, who has represented the Kolkata Knight Riders since his debut season in 2016, was right on the money and accounted for three key wickets (in the form of MI captain Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard and Anmolpreet Singh) as Rishabh Pant-led DC chased down a 178-run target versus the Mumbai line-up with four wickets to spare.

Talking about Kuldeep's run in Kolkata, he represented the two-time winners in 43 games and accounted for 40 scalps at an economy of 8.17. However, he wasn't favoured in the KKR XI since IPL 2019. In IPL 2019, he featured innine games whereas went onto make only five more appearances in the next two seasons before being released by the franchise ahead of IPL 2022 mega auction.

Thus, DC's former assistant coach Mohammed Kaif opened up on Kuldeep's forgettable end in KKR and made a glaring remark. "Kuldeep Yadav is a proven match-winner. But he is someone who also needs to be managed well. He is a bit emotional and feels low if he isn't given the bowling or is dropped from the team. The way he was treated at KKR when Dinesh Karthik and Eoin Morgan were the captains, he used to be made to sit at home and not even in the squad. When you behave like this, any match-winner feels the pressure," Kaif told SportsKeeda.

Following Kuldeep's omission in the KKR setup, his fall became evident in the Team India setup as well. Since the 2019 ODI World Cup, the 27-year-old has fallen behind in the pecking order across all formats. He will hope for a dream IPL 2022 season to revive his international career.