Kuldeep Yadav On His Recent Success In White Ball Cricket

The Indian team has started its Cricket World Cup 2023 campaign with an emphatic win against Australia. In a run chase of 200, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli stand tall after an early blow from Starc and Hazelwood. As we were expecting, Team India went with the three spinners considering the conditions in Chennai. And one of the important parts of their spin attack, Kuldeep Yadav played a huge role in this game. The left-arm wrist spinner talks about his revamp in his bowling after coming back from injury.

Kuldeep Yadav: Everyone told me to bowl quicker, but no one told me how | CWC 2023

Kuldeep Yadav on his recent success in white ball cricket

The left-arm wrist spinner, Kuldeep Yadav has been an important member of the bowling unit over the last one and a half years or so. His success has been there to see. In 2023, Kuldeep Yadav picked up 35 wickets in 17 innings with an average of 16.31 and an economy of 4.68. Only Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichane has more wickets (43) than Kuldeep Yadav.

After Australia’s match, he talks about his recent success in white ball cricket. Kuldeep said increasing the pace of the delivery helped him. He also said so many people advised them to increase the pace but didn’t tell them how to do it.

Important to vary the pace

Sometimes, the team gets a slow turner, where the spinners have to vary the pace. Although the wicket in Chennai (for India vs Australia) wasn’t a slow turner, Kuldeep Yadav said he has to increase the pace of the deliveries. The prime example of that is how he got the wicket of Glenn Maxwell in the match. Maxwell didn’t have so much time to adjust and Kuldeep got the better of him.

Kuldeep Yadav also emphasizes on the importance of pace in the delivery while giving an example of Steve Smith’s wicket, which was taken by Ravindra Jadeja.

The tendency in Indian cricket to have a spinner who bowls quicker

As we all know, just before the ICC World T20 2021, the selectors took the call to leave out Yuzvendra Chahal because he bowled slower through the air.

Varun Chakravarthy was preferred over an experienced Yuzi Chahal, citing the former is quicker through the air. However, that decision didn’t come out well for Team India and Varun Chakravarthy didn’t get much success in the tournament.

But to have pace in the deliveries helps the spinner to create more chances to get wickets. The batter has less time to react to the ball and to adjust. Also, bowling quicker is not the only way. To vary the pace accordingly is also important.

Kuldeep on the turning point post knee surgery in 2021

In 2021, Kuldeep Yadav went through knee surgery. During rehab, the former Indian team physio, Ashish Kaushik advised him to not put much pressure on his right leg. The advice helped Kuldeep to revamp his game and we can see how he progressed over the years.

Kuldeep on his training post-rehab

Kuldeep Yadav said he implemented the advice from Ashish Kaushik in his training and in match situations. He felt the difference in his bowling and got the reward for his hard work.

Kuldeep said that things didn’t change overnight. It took him 6 months to get the rhythm back.

Paras Mhambrey on the rise of Kuldeep Yadav

India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey praises Kuldeep Yadav for his hard work off the field. He also said Kuldeep knows in what areas he needs to work on. Paras said Kuldeep has worked a lot on his technical aspects, and the lengths and the areas have got better as well. He also said the wrist spinner has adapted quickly and brings a different variety to the bowling lineup.

Kuldeep will play a big role in the CWC 2023

Kuldeep Yadav will play a key role going forward in this CWC 2023. Being a lone wrist spinner in the team, his role will be even bigger. Team India will play in different venues throughout the tournament. And they will not get spinner-friendly wickets every game just like Chennai. In that situation, Kuldeep Yadav’s role will be more than Jadeja and Ashwin. A wrist spinner can turn the ball in less helpful conditions as well and get more bounce as well.

Especially in the middle overs, where most of the teams try to take wickets and control the game. Let’s see how Kuldeep Yadav goes about his business.

Conclusion

So that’s it for today. Team India will now play their next game against Afghanistan on October 11 in Delhi. Traditionally, Delhi’s wicket is a bit tricky and slows down as the game progresses. But we saw a run-fest in the South Africa-Sri Lanka game. It will be interesting to see how the pitch behaves. Afghanistan also has a spin trio of Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, and Mohammad Nabi, who can turn the table as well.  

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