Kuldeep Yadav, before his reinvention of becoming his current version, was quite reliant on his ability to toss up the ball in the air and beat the batters through his flight and the different angles he could create through his left-arm wrist spin, but after a certain point, batters started to pick him and he became predictable, and he altered something in his bowling. This was achieved by adding a few yards of pace to his bowling, and hence the current version.
Behind Kuldeep 2.0, apart from just sheer hard work, there was also a lot of smart work that was done. “I was speaking to Abhishek Nayar who was the Assistant coach of India and he was telling me how Kuldeep had to go back…he practised a lot in the beach and he had to work to get that much harder to the crease and quite a bit he worked in the sands of any beach that was nearby getting speed through his run up and he could follow through with the ground,” said former Indian player Dinesh Karthik speaking on Cricbuzz.
Analysing his spell against Bangladesh 3/18 in four overs Karthik said, “Toss-up can be a bit overated you don’t toss up these days how you mix it up important gone are the days when you can toss the ball up like you see the last wicket (Tanzim Hasan Sakib) you got Doosara new batter he tempted him to play a shot but there were also balls to Saif (Hassan), which he bowls flat and quick making sure he doesn’t get runs. That’s where he improved his understanding, if he is going to make sure he gives the single and the other batter on strike and probably tosses one up. He has been clever about it,” Karthik concluded on the matter.
In the ongoing Asia Cup, he picked up 12 wickets from just five games at an average of 8.08. There have been occasions during the tournament where he was taken for runs like the one against Pakistan in the Super 4 round where in the first couple of overs Pakistan batters were aggressive against him when he tossed up but in his second two overs with his renewed skills of bowling quicker and flatter he pulled back things to improve his figures from two overs none for 18 to four overs one for 31.
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