Umesh Yadav’s incisive spells with the old ball and Ravichandran Ashwin’s controlled effort ensured India did not have eggs on their faces for the controversial team selection in the second Test against Bangladesh.

The decision of leaving out Kuldeep Yadav from the playing XI though he was the team’s best bowler — Man of the Match, to be precise — in the last Test would have returned to haunt them if the Bangladesh batters had a better outing on Thursday. But thanks to Umesh and Ashwin, India bowled their hosts out for 227 on the opening day of the match to avoid more unpleasant questions than what is being already asked.

At stumps, India reached 19 for no loss with stand-in captain KL Rahul batting on 3 off 30 balls with Shubman Gill (14 batting off 20 balls) for company.

But with some of the balls bowled by the Bangladeshi spinners turning square, there could be more twists awaiting in the Test and the Kuldeep issue may again come up for discussion and debate during the course of the game.

The Test marked the return of left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat to the longest format after 12 long years, but more than him, it was Kuldeep, the player he replaced, who hogged the spotlight on Thursday morning. That Unadkat managed to bag two wickets — 2/50 in 16 overs — perhaps saved head coach Rahul Dravid and captain KL Rahul’s faces somewhat for the time being. After all, the decision to drop Kuldeep was passed off as a “management’s call” by Umesh during the post-match media conference.

Umesh though would not be bothered by any such controversy after returning figures of 4/25 in Bangladesh’s first innings. Ashwin, who did not have a good outing in the series opener, will also be happy with his 4/71 on Thursday. The experienced off-spinner is three wickets away from a career-haul of 450 Test wickets.

On a pitch that was termed confusing by Rahul at the toss, Bangladesh were bailed out by former skipper Mominul Haque (84 off 157 balls). While Mominul showed Testmatch patience, surviving at the crease for more than four hours, he hardly got any support from his teammates.

It was Unadkat who gave India the first breakthrough in the morning session when a rising ball surprised Zakir Hasan. The Saurashtra pacer also got the wicket of Mushfiqur Rahim.

Unadkat had made his Test debut against South Africa at Centurion in December 2010. The gap between his first and second Test stands at 118 matches — the highest by an Indian and the second highest in world cricket.

Written with inputs from PTI