It’s a pity that Kuldeep Yadav’s special night in a long time as India player had to come against the hapless UAE team. It’s not about the quality of opposition but his long wait, rejected as he was during the entire Test series in England that made this special.
His last international game had come in March this year, a 50-over encounter against New Zealand. His last wicket in the format came as far back as June 27, 2024, against England in the World T20. Then in one over of tease and torment, his second of the day, he grabbed three, striking one with his first, fourth and sixth ball to wrap up the game. He found UAE at 47/2, left them teetering at 50/5 and returned to wrap them up for 57 all out.
His return to international cricket turned into a blockbuster, exciting and entrancing the sparse crowd that had braved the draining heat and humidity of the evening, besides gift-wrapping his team with the most facile nine-wicket victory.
Simple, but enough
Such was the strength of the opposition that his deception, almost school-boyish simple, was enough. Confusing Rahul Chopra with an interplay of flight and flat trajectory in the previous over, which the batsman defused with patience, though not with the certainty of his variations, he unpacked the bait-ball. Flighted and seemingly fullish at first sight. Chopra’s eyes bulged in hope, he could swipe the ball down the ground. Or he presumed. The ball rebelled. It dropped a few centimetres shorter than he had judged, or he could have been hypnotised by the lavish revs on the ball. Relief flashed on Kuldeep’s face. How long had he waited for the moment. How long he could have waited for the moment.
After tasting the blood, he could not wait for his next hunt. The wait lasted merely three balls. There was no elaborate set-up. A flatter ball outside the off-stump, followed by a flatter ball on the leg-stump. The first one slid into Muhammed Waseem; the second shaped away a fraction and hit his pads when he tried to paddle it. A brisk wrong one. Waseem, the hosts’ last ray of hope in making the game remotely competitive, referred but couldn’t overturn the decision. Kuldeep, in this format, can quick-kill a team when in mood. He was in the mood too, eager to compensate for the lost years, and the quality of the opposition wasn’t good enough.
There are a dime-a-dozen wrist spinners in this format, but none are as beguiling or beautiful as Kuldeep is, none bowl with as much wisdom or artistry. (PTI Photo)
Harshit Kaushik looked already nervous when he walked. He got only more nervous. It manifested in a hideous clump first ball, which he missed. He flailed at the next ball, unsure where the ball was landing. He missed the trajectory altogether. The wrong’un defeating every wish and prayer of the batsman, spun through the gap between his bat and pad to disarray the stumps. On this instance, though, Kuldeep could not resist celebrating, as he punched the air in joyous anger. The optics of the ball would have pleased him, the inward drift, the curvy path, the devious drop, the batsman’s petrified eyes and the flashing orange bails.
He had to wait again as only four overs later did he get another bite of the cherry, despite the crowd chanting his name. When he returned, UAE had lost nine wickets. He did not prolong the agony of farcical batting performance and wrapped up the sorry innings with his first ball of the over. His spoils read: 2.1-0-7-4. A caveat would accompany the figures–it came against UAE, who arguably had the unkindest task to unpeel the guiles of a bowler as multi-dimensional as Kuldeep.
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A bowler at peace
But this should be a performance that should be viewed in isolation, to fully revel in the mastery of a masterful bowler, a rare spectacle of a wrist spinner. There are a dime-a-dozen wrist spinners in this format, but none are as beguiling or beautiful as Kuldeep is, none bowl with as much wisdom or artistry. He is at the peak of his career, that space when the wicket visualises in front of his eyes. The patterns unfold, as though like on a chess board through the gaze of a veteran Grandmaster.
The 31-year-old is a bowler at peace with his craft. He is always relaxed, seldom flustered. He had explained the genesis of his relaxed mindset to the newspaper: “The problem is we tend to get rid of our basics very quickly, more so when it comes to the T20 format.” In the past, he had the tricks, but not the persistence. He was in a hurry to show all his cryptic variations all at once. Now he swears by the mantra of “reading the batsman’s mind. I try to see what he expects you to bowl next and what shot he can try. Attacking mindset, reading the batsman, keeping in mind his scoring areas — if these things are in focus, the load on a bowler’s mind comes down.” He has also burned the fear of failure. He said the same in the presentation ceremony. “Even today as well, reacting to what the batters would do on the next ball,” he said and added: “Everything is going perfectly. Tried to hit the right length and it matters a lot, reading the batters on what they are trying to do.”
All these, adjustment of both mind and methods, has both liberated him and elevated his bowling to a level where batsmen dread him and could even see him in nightmares. He also showed why he needs to play every game for his country in this format, not only because he is the trickiest, but also because he is the meanest as well as the most evolved, having found the true essence and meaning of his bowling. He gives perfection to this intimidating bowling cartel that could be unstoppable on most days as well as pitches. And there are, invariably, more Kuldeep nights to come, even against better quality opponents.
