'Confusion to zaroor hai': Former India pacer questions Umesh Yadav's selection in first T20I vs Australia

India had quite the horrible start to the three-match T20I series vs Australia as they lost the first game by four wickets. Batting first, India put on 208 courtesy half-centuries from Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul, and a handy 46 from Suryakumar Yadav. However, the Australian batsmen were in top form as they won the game by pulling off the second most successful run chase in T20Is against India.

In fact, the Indian bowlers were terribly off colour, as all of them apart from Axar Patel went for more than 11 runs an over. Umesh Yadav, who made his return to the Indian playing XI oin T20Is after three years, also didn't impress inspite of picking up the wickets of Steven Smith and Glenn Maxwell in the same over. In fact, he finished with figures of 2/27 in 2 overs, going at 13.5 runs per over.

Former India bowler Ashish Nehra feels that India should have selected Deepak Chahar if he was fit over Umesh Yadav.

“Why is Umesh Yadav playing? You brought Shami and then you had Deepak Chahar. You said Bumrah wasn’t fit, I would also like to know why you didn’t play Deepak Chahar. There was a time when Chahar was the frontrunner to replace Bhuvneshwar Kumar. If Deepak Chahar was fit to play and Umesh Yadav has played ahead of him, then confusion to zaroor hai,” Nehra said in an interaction with Cricbuzz.

In fact, in the same discussion, former India pacer RP Singh said that even Jasprit Bumrah might go for runs when he returns to the team.

"These are not good signs. Okay, in Asia Cup, we were saying that ‘we don’t have Harshal Patel and Jasprit Bumrah.’ Harshal Patel was here and he went away for runs. Who knows if Bumrah returns, he might also go for runs. So, we can’t say that someday our main players are going to return and make us win matches. The more we are nearing the T20 World Cup, our performance is dipping,” he said.