Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): Kuldeep Yadav had a night to remember at his home ground, Ekana Stadium. Bowling under the lights has been his forte, and the match against England gave him the opportunity he was waiting for – an opportunity to wipe out the Birmingham pain and make-up for the drubbing he got by England strokers in the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
England has been his nemesis in many ways but most importantly for him, it’s the ouster from the squad that he will always smart about. Though he insisted at the post-match presser at Lucknow that "revenge" is never a dish served cold or hot on his platter, the delight of getting Jos Buttler – and the way he got him with a beauty of an inside turner, shows how desperate and eager he was to send some Brits packing.
The two wickets he took on a dewy surface, negating the wetness of the ball by consistently being able to slip in a turner amid faster, straighter ones were his wristy left-handed compliments that the team doted on.
"Hundred per cent, this has been because of the preparation for the whole year and the way we played back-to-back bilateral series. It's our preparation for the World Cup, so there is no drastic change in bowling at night or in day,” Kuldeep Yadav said, hiding a smile.
At Lucknow, Kuldeep Yadav made a comeback of sorts after Rachin Ravindran and Daryl Mitchell stained his economy rate to 7.7 an over at Dharamsala a week before. Put it down to his Rafael Nadal-like intent to never give up on rebuilding a performance that he did not go wicket-less and contributed as a late riser to India's win against New Zealand.
"It is good if we get the batting first. But if we get a good score, it's more fun. The score was good at 230 and the wicket was difficult. My job was simple, to bowl at a good length. It was spinning. I used the crease well. The result was good,” he tells you.
But only a fool would be led astray by Kuldeep’s calculated nonchalance. Underneath that, there is a lot of homework, a constant effort to evolve and impromptu adaptation to the conditions in a given over. He got Jos Buttler, for example, after lulling him with four straight deliveries and then turning in sharply when he least expected it.
The Jos Buttler ball was bowled exactly the way he had turned it to get Pakistan’s star batter Babar Azam earlier in the year. Replicating weaponry and strikes is no easy task and needs a memory that’s sorted enough to recur at the right time for the right man.
"Both the balls were good. Both were the same. There were no changes. The quality is important, and the quality of the players is also very important. They were very important wickets. And the team won – that is more important," he says.
It is rare for a left-arm wrist spinner to be in the centre of action and emerge as the fortune keeper of the team and become the go-to bowler for the skipper to break partnerships, disrupt the ennui and catch the batters off-guard at their strongest hour. Kuldeep Yadav does just that.
"I know my hometown well and the conditions very well. The wicket spins and when you bowl on seam, it spins better. I was trying to bowl the ball on a good length and use the crease well," he says.
Winning is very important for Kuldeep Yadav. He is not one who would contribute to a lost cause unless it has the ability to turn the tide, which mostly he engineers – if the first spell goes without making a statement, he returns with new strategies in the next and then the next, even though he is the guy to go to for the middle overs, and as one saw against England at Lucknow, even a wee bit towards the death overs.
This Kanpur boy’s reemergence on the scene has not been a result of coincidence or the elements getting together for him. It has been his ability to work on his evolution, not be put down by being dropped and learning from past incidents that has gone his way.
"I worked on my stance and now I am able to bowl a straighter stance which means I put my entire body behind the ball and that gives my shoulder the much-needed break," he said at an earlier interaction during the World Cup.
Indeed, it needs the Kuldeep Yadav kind of mental strength to re-brand and recur in team India despite the pulls and pressures against spinners and the over-populated energies trying to break into the playing eleven.
"Every time everything doesn’t go in your favour. Sometimes you face bad times," Kuldeep said in the context of England being in tatters, insisting that it is long-term practice and playing a lot of ODI cricket that leads to the kind of space he and his team are in."This full year, I have played one day matches and bowled at night. I have played in Australia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. I have always been prepared. I have played more one day cricket this year (than ever)," he said.
Kuldeep’s ground mantra is to focus on his bowling. "I don't think much about the rest," he asserts. But the beauty about team India's victories has been the ability of the squad to work on their assigned roles and rise to the occasion when required. Kuldeep has studiously followed this instruction.
Also, the bowling department has come into the game with a lionised reputation because they have been hunting in packs, be it the quicks in Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj or the spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav.
"I'm sure that all the fast bowlers are bowling in partnership, even the spinners. When you bowl, you think about how you can bowl well and get a wicket. We have five quality bowlers. Sometimes, you might need a sixth one, like in Dharamshala where it was a high-scoring game," he said.
At the Lucknow match, the Indian batters were put in a spot and had it not been for the skipper Rohit Sharma's resilient knock of 87 and Suryakumar Yadav’s well-earned 49, it may have well become a lost cause. The last 15-20 runs came from the bats of Kuldeep and Jasprit Bumrah which gave some muscle to defence.
"I am working hard on my batting, I am contributing to the team, I contribute 10-15 runs, it helps the team. The last 25-odd run partnership helped us to reach a good target of 230. I felt that we can defend it," Kuldeep said. "Sometimes I score, sometimes it doesn’t hit the bat. I get out. We get the last 3-4 overs to bat. Sometimes you don't get a single, you get a few dots. You don't think like a batsman (batter). If you get two dot balls, you get under pressure,” he explained.
Kuldeep Yadav is a thinking and hard-working Chinaman bowler. "We just try to bowl in perfect areas and make them (batters) make mistake. That's my plan as a spinner," he said.
For now, that’s what Kuldeep Yadav is bringing to the table – a simple, wristy punch to pack the opposition off on surfaces he loves to spice up and even on those where it is difficult to turn tables.
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