Call yet to be taken on bowling attack for Asia Cup opener, bowling coach Morkel hails Kuldeep Yadav's attitude despite not playing in Eng

Dubai [UAE], September 8 (ANI): Ahead of his side's Asia Cup opener against the UAE, Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel said that the call on the number of spinners to be played will be taken after the wicket is seen and also spoke on how great spinner Kuldeep Yadav has been, attitude-wise, despite missing out on playing chances during the Test tour of England.

India will kickstart their Asia Cup campaign against the UAE in Dubai from Wednesday. India played the ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai, with spinners Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Varun Chakravarthy occupying many of the wickets and the spotlight. It would be interesting to see how many spinners India will play in their Asia Cup campaign opener.

Speaking during the pre-tournament presser, Morkel said about the bowling combination, if India will play three or four spinners, "We need to go and look at the wicket. I think when the Champions Trophy was played at that time, there was a lot of cricket on the surfaces here and they looked a little bit tired."

"So again, tonight we will have a first look at the surface and I believe there is quite a bit of a grass covering on the square. So we will have a good idea going into the first game in terms of what is sort of a better way to go, but in terms of planning at the moment, we're covering all bases, and then we will make a decision on the match day," he added.

Speaking about Kuldeep, who bowled 32 overs in Central Zone's Duleep Trophy quarterfinal but went wicketless and also missed out playing chances in England in favour of spin bowling all-rounders Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, Morkel was full of praise for the spinner with 69 wickets in 40 T20Is at an average of 14.07.

"I think he is a very professional athlete. His attitude since England, where he received hardly any game time, he is still the guy that put the overs in. And for me, Kuldeep, like I said, he has bowled a lot of overs in his career. He knows what to do to get himself ready for T20 cricket, white-ball cricket. And like I said, we can control only what we can control now, and that is when we do train now and when we have our sessions, that it is focused, that there is a purpose behind it, and we have goals. We set those goals out and from there, it is up to them to go out and lead with the ball," he concluded.

Kuldeep's last game in Indian colours was the Champions Trophy final back in March here in Dubai, taking two wickets in the final and a total of seven wickets in five matches at an average of 31.85 and an economy rate of 4.79.

His last T20I for India was the T20 World Cup final last year in June, where he went wicketless for 45 runs in four overs. He took 10 wickets in five matches at an average of 13.90 in India's title winning campaign.

Team India squad for Asia Cup: Surya Kumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (WK), Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh

Reserve players: Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal. (ANI)

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