Kuldeep Yadav may remain the victim of India's new policy. We have witnessed a trend of preferring all-rounders to frontline players since Gautam Gambhir became the head coach. We saw it during the England tour of India when Kuldeep was warming the bench in the 5-match series. Being a walking wicket in white-ball cricket, it is possible that Kuldeep meets the same fate in the Asia Cup. As Team India has selected only three spinners, it would imply that they want to play only two of them. Because teams usually prefer to have cover in the event of an injury. If that is the case, Kuldeep could miss out. India's former spinner Maninder Singh feels Axar Patel and Varun Chakaravarthy are currently placed above the left-arm wrist-spinner in the scheme of things. Axar is an all-rounder to his advantage, while Varun was India's best bowler in the UAE during the Champions Trophy. Here is what Maninder told India Today: “I doubt if they’re going to play Kuldeep Yadav if they’re going to play two spinners in the Asia Cup. It’s going to be Axar Patel because he can bat as well and Varun Chakaravarthy,” Former left-arm spinner feels that Varun will be India's X-factor. The moniker was earlier shared by Kuldeep, but after Varun pulled out his 2.0 version in the past 24 months, he has overjumped him. His mystique gives him an edge over Kuldeep, which will prove to be problematic for wrist spinner. “He’s (Chakaravarthy) a material somebody, who’s very smart, not many of that breed in world cricket. So, I feel that he’s going to be very effective amongst the three Indian spinners in the Asia Cup. He’s a very smart bowler. He knows how to bowl in different situations and reads batters very well. He may look blank on the outside, but he’s a real thinker,” Maninder added. India’s full squad for Asia Cup 2025 Suryakumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (wk), Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh Standby: Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Yashasvi Jaiswal.