The left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav has dispensed facts while having a candid chat with former Australia coach Michael Clarke.
After being left out of India’s squads several times due to injuries and a dip in his performances, he played a crucial role in the Champions Trophy and emerged as India’s third wicket-taker with 7 scalps, next to Varun Chakravarthy and Mohammed Shami.
He was then rewarded by the ICC as he climbed up to third in the ODI rankings for bowlers.
Michael Clarke has reckoned that Kuldeep should consistently play all three formats for India.
Australia’s World Cup winning coach believes that Kuldeep has been in his prime in his career and although the competition is such that being a permanent feature in all India matches is tough unless you’re a Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma or Ravindra Jadeja.
“Watching you recently in the Champions Trophy, I think you are bowling the best I’ve seen you bowl. I say it openly, and this is my personal opinion, but I think you should be playing all three formats for India. But I know it’s hard. You have a lot of spinners in front of you,” Clarke told wrist-spinner.
Kuldeep acknowledged Clarke, admitting that he’s probably in the best form of his life. Having endured a time in his career when he didn’t play a test match for India for two years despite taking a five-wicket haul, Kuldeep’s fortunes changed in 2022 when Rohit took over as India’s captain.
He picked up 19 wickets in the test series against England before being sidelined due to a groin injury- eventually diagnosed as a hernia.
“I think I have been bowling really well from the last 3-4 years. After the injury, when I came back, what I wanted to change in my bowling was to understand the batter better. I always had the rhythm. A lot depends on the surface as well,” said wrist spinner.
“I bowled really well in the Champions Trophy. We were playing with 4 spinners so it is very difficult to get wickets – someone may always pick more wickets than you – but I thought I was right on the target, bowling wicket-to-wicket and showing more variations,” Kuldeep told Clarke.
“Although I thought the wicket wasn’t great for spinners – it was slow – but it was very tough to produce that wicket. I underwent a hernia surgery in November so it was very difficult to come back and find the same rhythm going.”
“I played a couple of games against England before the Champions Trophy and I personally feel that it was a good tournament for us and me,” concluded Kuldeep Yadav.
