From the time he walked into the side as a left-arm wrist-spinner, Kuldeep Yadav’s career has been a start-stop affair. There were days when he played ahead of Ravichandran Ashwin in Tests, and there have been matches where he has continued to warm the bench while a replacement player played ahead of him. In the T20 format, where bowlers of his ilk are sought after, he has spent match after match sitting in the dugout.
From being a regular in white-ball formats, he has missed successive T20 World Cups – one because of injury and being left out of the other. In the BCCI annual contracts, he has been demoted from Grade A to C. With Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar being all-rounders, even when India have gone in with three spinners, they have often chosen to leave Kuldeep out. During India’s home series against England, played in spin-friendly conditions, Kuldeep was dropped mid-way through the series. And this year, during the home series against Sri Lanka, he was dropped once again to accommodate Axar.
But by the end of the second day’s play at Chattogram on Thursday, Kuldeep’s all-round efforts had helped India take control of the first Test. In his first Test in nearly two years, Kuldeep proved his value.
With his homework in place and back to full fitness, Kuldeep left Bangladesh reeling on Day 2 with his four wickets as the hosts ended the day at 133/8, still 271 runs short of India’s first innings total of 404.
Wrist-spinners want their captains and team management to show more confidence in them than they would do in others. So when KL Rahul threw the ball to Kuldeep in the 24th over of the Bangladesh innings – even ahead of Axar, whose left-arm spin could have done a lot more damage thanks to the variable bounce and turn in the pitch – it must have given a massive lift to Kuldeep’s confidence.
Having made a crucial 40 and shared an 87-run partnership for the eighth wicket with Ashwin in the morning and afternoon sessions, Kuldeep couldn’t have asked for more.
He had been waiting for the moment, and was up against Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim – two good players against spin. After a single off the first ball to Rahim, his second delivery to Shakib left the Bangladesh captain in the middle of nowhere.
Having jumped down the track to unsettle the wrist-spinner, the left-hander had no answer to the one that had proper flight, dip and turn. As Shakib tried to work him towards mid-wicket, he ended up edging the delivery to first slip. That started a spell where with each ball, Kuldeep looked like picking a wicket.
Quality with variety
His load-up and slow hand-speed (arm-rotation) have been issues in the past. But not anymore. Kuldeep found his rhythm and Bangladesh found the going tough. On a pitch where finger-spinners were doing the most damage, Kuldeep showed what he could offer with his variations. Relying mostly on his stock delivery – one that cuts into the right-hander – he used the googly and straighter one to good effect and kept batsmen guessing. Of course, these have always been in his armoury.
So, where was it going wrong? “The rhythm,” said Kapil Pandey, who has been coaching Kuldeep since childhood. “Rhythm for a spinner is all about hand-and-body coordination, run-up, action and what length you are bowling.” While Pandey helped Kuldeep find rhythm, especially the hand-speed, there was something else Kuldeep had to do.
According to Pandey, who converted Kuldeep from a fast bowler to a spinner, they had modelled his action similar to that of Shane Warne. “Warne never bowled that quick, there used to be spin and drift in his bowling. I told him to work on his loop and flight, and once you get the rhythm back, the speed will also increase. He has worked on his hand-rotation. It is a bit quick now,” Pandey added.
With his rhythm in place, the other area Pandey and Kuldeep worked on was consistently landing deliveries in good-length areas. On Day 2, out of the 10 overs Kuldeep sent down, there was not a single short delivery. The majority of them were around the good-length area, which fetched him three wickets.
“We have practised spot-bowling a lot. It was done so that he doesn’t bowl short. You have to cut down on freebies, and that is important for a wrist-spinner because it tends to release pressure. A wrist-spinner will always go for runs, sometimes they will bowl too full or sometimes half-trackers. It is part of their game and you have got to manage them well by giving proper support,” Pandey added.
India's Kuldeep Yadav plays a shot during the second day of the first test cricket match between Bangladesh and India in Chattogram, Bangladesh, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav) 
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