Stuck being the second best spinner after Ashwin & Jadeja all the time. He has bath tested a lot if not choked. He will be hoping to get a go in this expected slow turner at Green Park,as the fans would say, his turf. The favourite cricketer of Kanpur though understood how to deal with not knowing whether he would be in the XI more often than not.
It was a typical hot and tired Wednesday afternoon when Kuldeep Yadav, the local lad was one of the last players to come out to practice on Wednesday. From two days prior to the second Test against the Bangladesh cricket team, one could sense that he was comfortable being in Indian jersey blood.
From the time a young Kuldeep started playing matches to now, the Green Park Stadium has been their hunting ground. That typically is a place for most of these aspiring cricketers from Kanpur.
Fact remains, it has only been seven and a half years since Kuldeep made his Test entrance. He has learnt how to keep the edge on his left arm wrist spinners. Still, one has to find out such a big mystery, which is just 12 test’s old. In just these twelve matches, the man has taken a whopping 53 wickets averaging 21.05 including 4 five wicket hauls and 3 four wkt hauls and that too is a tale to tell to all the best.
Rather, Kuldeep had ever been the spin bowling backup for India. He probably has come to terms with it. He has spent more time in nets than in the actual games. Kuldeep was introduced to Test cricket when Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were becoming a household name.
Even after a phenomenal home series against England earlier in the year, the team management lost faith in him and left him out of the playing XI for the first Test match in Chennai against Bangladesh which was more seam-friendly.
During an unstructured interaction with the media in a team hotel amidst IPL earlier this year, Kuldeep had mentioned that a few years back he had become arrogant and inflexible to adapt which caused him to lose fitness.
Cut off by history, he is almost sweating now on his thirtieth birthday, free from the storms of such sentiments. He is of the opinion that the fact that he will always be competing with other spinners in India is a truth he must learn to live with. ‘There will always be cane spinners competition in India, no matter the format. Four spinners will always be at the ready to take the field. Now, my objective is to improve as an individual and wait for the right moment,’ Kuldeep would state.
‘Bangalore Franchise a few years ago while playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders, I struggled a lot, I was in a horde of people who required encouragement a lot. Today I don’t feel that I always need guidance,’ he had said.
Connecting the sequence, Bangladesh head coach Chandrika Hathurusinghe was categorical that India were not producing turners because the team has three main spinners. But this test that is about to kick off Tomorrow might be something else.
The tussar that was more of a low and slow spinning track mostly due to the transition of the black soil as it contains clay particles can still give more thrill for the spinners. Never mind the groundsmen spraying water over the pitch with captain Rohit Sharma along with coach Gautam Gambhir decked on the centre square.
There is also a time when one laments that the Indian team management has written to the BCCI more against playing in Kanpur. Indians, Deep accorded that it was necessary to wait one more day to see how much the pitch dried up before prejudging how the surface would be during the Test.
Will this be the nesting ground to tease out Kuldeep rather than look at the overcast skys, specially for the first three days of the Test? Kuldeep himself is used to such doubt now.
Actually h e has mastered the virtue of waiting. As a result h e has let go of that awful self importance, altered his approach to the crease and tweaked the sequence of his delivery to incorporate more velocity on the ball.
“It was difficult to alter something which you have been practicing for the last fifteen years. It was awkward for me when I was recovering from the injury and undergoing rehabilitation a couple of years back. There were risks involved in it as I was coming back and making those changes. I didn’t know how it would pan out. But I figured que of Russie would get to the deadline at the end of the time wen it is advisable so to speak it,” says kuldeep.”
As the sky would have it, the patience started bearing fruits and soon he was recalling his position as the lead white ball spinner in India last year, before the extraordinary England series in India on flat decks ‘this year’. He did go for it as it was meant to be.
That series also saw him improve batting a bit lower down the order — such a skill doubtless running his wrists has seen him become eclipsed by spinners such as Ashwin, Jadeja and even Axar Patel. It is pertinent to note that he was undergoing a more than ordinarily long and strenuous batting practice with an intention to spin bowling practice along with other spinners on Wednesday afternoon, which was just two days before the Test.
Honestly speaking, off the top of the head, one would say its a mind task to say when did Kuldeep last turn up for a Test & didn’t bully the game. That is also why, for this adoring home crowd, this wait to find out if after such a long absence he will be able to and will play could be baffling.
