Former India and RCB batter Cheteshwar Pujara backed the home team’s decision to pick Prince Yadav ahead of Kuldeep Yadav in the playing XI for the third T20I against the West Indies in Indore. He also agreed with the decision to pick Nitish Kumar Reddy instead of Shivam Dube and opined that the Men in Blue chose the playing XI according to the conditions.

India beat the West Indies by 14 runs at the Holkar Stadium in Indore on Sunday, October 11 in the third T20I of the five-match series. Sent into bat, India put up 223 on the board and then held the Windies to 209-7.

During a discussion on Cricinfo, Pujara praised the Indian team for making some smart, condition-specific changes to their playing XI. He said:

“I think the team selection was perfect. In the T20 format, I believe in picking the best XI on a given day based on the conditions and the ground. Kuldeep has been bowling really well, but you needed someone like Prince Yadav to be part of the playing XI. And, it was a fair call to pick Nitish Kumar Reddy instead of Shivam Dube. Not that Shivam is not a good T20 player, but Reddy is a better bowler.”

Prince registered figures of 0-37 from four overs. Earlier, he contributed an unbeaten 13 off six with the bat. On the other hand, Reddy scored 21 off 14 and also claimed the wicket of Quentin Sampson.

“He challenged himself to go around the stumps” – Pujara hails Team India pacer after 3rd IND vs WI 2026 T20I

Left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh was the Player of the Match in Indore for his figures of 3-44 from four overs. He got the big scalps of Shai Hope (5) and Sherfane Rutherford (32) before adding the wicket of Keemo Paul. Pujara praised Arshdeep for bowling around the wicket in the game, an angle he is not comfortable with. The former India batter said (via the aforementioned source):

“It was important that Indian bowlers came up with a good game plan, which was not to give a lot of room to the West Indies batters, especially Shai Hope. And, the kind of angles Indian bowlers created… Someone like Arshdeep Singh is not used to bowling around the stumps. He always prefers to bowl over the stumps, but he challenged himself to go around the stumps, try and create that angle and keep the balls in the stumps and he got his reward.”

The fourth T20I of the five-match series between India and the West Indies will be played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on October 14.