“Watching Umran in the nets even yesterday, he has got that pace,” Dravid said. “He is a young boy who is learning all the time. He is getting better and improving all the time. The more games he is able to play, the better he is going to get.
“From our perspective, I am very happy to have someone like him in the mix. We just have to see how much of playing time we will be able to give him. We also have to be realistic, we have got a really large squad. It’s not possible to give everyone playing XI time.
After a couple of underwhelming seasons, Kuldeep seemed to be bowling a touch quicker through the air. He picked up 21 wickets at IPL 2022 and was named the Player of the Match on four occasions.
“Obviously, he had that injury unfortunately in the last IPL, and in fact even without playing any first-class cricket, we got him back into the mix because we see the quality,” Dravid said. “He has been a terrific performer. We know that the kind of quality he brings people find very difficult to read. He is a wicket taker. So there are a lot of positives of having Kuldeep in the group.