India need to start counting on the Kuldeep factor

Hindustan Times

7 hours ago

Kolkata: Just over a year ago, 83 of 98 English wickets to fall were taken by Jasprit Bumrah, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav during a five-match home series. Off-spinner Ashwin averaged 24.8 runs per wicket and struck every 36.1 balls, left-arm spinner Jadeja averaged 25.05 and 46.2. Left arm wrist spinner Yadav? 20.15 and 36, numbers that were only bettered by Bumrah. If playing on the psychological pivot of recency was a game, India certainly lost that one when they announced the team for the Leeds Test. India's left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav during practice at the Headingley ground. (Reuters)
Take out the last two sessions and India were effectively playing with two proper bowlers in Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj, Prasidh Krishna struggling with his length all the while as Jadeja was repeatedly being given the 'reverse' treatment by Ben Duckett. Barring Ollie Pope, England's top-order has always been edgy against proper spin bowling. Jadeja, anyway, is generally reliant on the surface and even he didn't exploit the rough outside the popping crease for a long time, something that hasn't gone unnoticed.
'You talk about experience, and he (Jadeja) has all the experience in the world,' former England cricketer Mark Butcher was quoted as saying on the Wisden Cricket Weekly Podcast. 'Somehow, it didn't seem to click with him or Rishabh Pant, the keeper, that it might be a good idea not to keep missing the rough all day to the left-handers.'
Maybe Jadeja wasn't on top of his game but India too weren't brave with their team selection. And that has been a recurring problem with India's overseas tours—bravery has somehow grown to be associated with taking the right call, as if there would be any less flak if they took the wrong one.
It was the sort of 'dilemma' Rahul Dravid had faced in the fifth and final Test against England in Dharamsala last year, till he took the call anyway. 'It was the braver option (to pick Kuldeep) and yes, we had to take a call there, and I'm really glad we were brave,' he had said after the match. 'We went with the braver option when we decided to back the fact that we knew we needed 20 wickets to win the series, and trust our batsmen to do the job when required, and I think that's paid off.'
A little context here. Like on this tour, in 2024 too Yadav hadn't started in the first Test at Hyderabad. England won it by 28 runs. He featured in each of the three subsequent Tests though, India winning all three handsomely. Since Dharamsala offers a pitch most favourable pitch to seamers, there is always the temptation to go with the one less spinner but India stuck to Siraj-Bumrah, alongwith Ashwin, Jadeja and Yadav. That game was won by an innings and 64 runs.
Yadav returned seven wickets in that match, including 5/72 in the first innings when the pitch was doing nothing for the spinners. He bowled 15 overs non-stop from one end and kept chipping away at England, reducing them to 175/4 from 64/1 till they were 218 all out. He then followed it up with a 69-ball 30, stitched a 49-run ninth-wicket partnership with Bumrah and helped India garner a 250-run plus first innings lead. There was no coming back from there for England.
Two valuable lessons should have been learnt that day. First, Yadav doesn't need any conditional advantage to be successful as a bowler. He has taken some facets of his white-ball bowling and incorporated it in accordance with the demands of the longest format. Stupendous control of his bowling trajectory is one of those things that he has mastered with time. He can be a bundle of nerves, but Yadav is also an extremely skillful bowler capable of squeezing out a wicket with the smallest of variations. When you pit all this against the monotony with which England try to play spin (reverse sweeping almost all the time), it's hard to justify not including Yadav.
Secondly, Yadav is no muppet with the bat. For all the talk of sacrificing a bowler for the sake of adding depth to the batting, India know how that plan worked at Leeds. Even if Jadeja was trying to put together some runs in the second innings, he didn't get any support from the lower order. Adding Yadav could have bucked that trend, apart from obviously boosting India's wicket-taking ability against an England batting that was willing to be patient against good bowling.
India are deep into a transition that doesn't only mean a change of personnel but also a change of outlook. For nearly a decade, India took for granted the batting returns of Ashwin and Jadeja at home while sacrificing Ashwin the allrounder away from home.
Throughout this time, Yadav hovered on the fringes. He made his debut eight years ago, but has played just 13 Tests. Twice he has been the Man-of-the-Match, only to be dropped from the next Test. Ashwin has retired, Jadeja isn't as challenging a bowler in non-Asian countries, and Axar Patel is still considered only for home series. Any change of guard must involve giving Kuldeep Yadav a wide berth, for no other spinner deserves this more than him.