India’s best weapon, but played only 12 tests in 7 years! Career flight never happened that way. Yet Kuldeep is as reliable a weapon as ever for Team India. Bottled the opponent batters in the spin. Kuldeep Yadav surprised the South spinner by appearing on Ravichandran Ashwin’s podcast this year. Ashwin is surprised to discover that Kuldeep Yadav is 29 years old. And within three months, Kuldeep will be in his thirties.
The fact is, after making his Test debut in 2017, Kuldeep played only 12 Tests. Kuldeep’s coach was optimistic that he would finally get a chance to bowl at the green park where the Chinaman cricketer is known to bowl. But that didn’t happen either.
Kuldeep’s coach Kapil Pandey told Indian Express, “It is unfortunate that Kuldeep has played only 12 Tests in 7 years. Hopefully, he can play his 12th Test in Kanpur.” Kuldeep’s career engine has repeatedly started and stopped. After taking 5 wickets in Sydney in 2019, Kuldeep was tipped to become India’s number one spinner overseas.
However, the then coach Ravi Shastri did not meet that prediction. Constantly off-form, a career-threatening knee injury sidelined the star spinner. Kuldeep took 8 wickets in Chittagong Test in 2022. He made 42 with Ashwin in the first innings on the way to a 92-run partnership for the eighth wicket. Despite being the player of the match in that Test, Kuldeep could not retain his place in the next Test. The team management replaced him with Jaydev Unadkat.
The prevailing perception about Kuldeep was that he lacked the X factor in his bowling. Being slow can’t even beat the batters. However, he has broken that idea in the last few years. Kuldeep’s coach Kapil said in a frustrated tone, “Kuldeep was told to speed up the bowling. And to improve himself with the bat.
He did both. But he was dropped in the next Test. From that day on, every time he was left out of the first XI, I laughed. . His labors I saw from the front. The amount of injustice he suffered, he told me, ‘My drift and dip will answer for me.’
This year, Kuldeep made a great comeback despite missing the first Test in the England series. He took 19 wickets in the series. This included a player of the match performance with 5 wickets in the innings at Dharamshala. But six months later when India came to Chennai to play the Test. Kuldeep had to drop out.