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Shane Warne wrote in his autobiography: “Leg-spin is no half-hearted journey. You have to love to bowl leg-spin.” In present times, this quote can be a reference point for Kuldeep Yadav’s bowling. Kuldeep, who bowls left-arm wrist-spin, seems to be in love with his craft. And that is manifesting into wickets and success.
After bowling two overs in the Asia Cup final against Pakistan, his figures read no wickets for 23 runs. Fakhar Zaman and Sahibzada Farhan had landed a six each off his bowling. At that stage, many bowlers of his ilk would have wilted under pressure. Not Kuldeep.
With a delicious mix of googlies, stock deliveries and clever changes in pace, he made a redoubtable comeback, taking three wickets in a single over. More than the wickets that he took, it was about how he never gave up despite being hit around in his earlier overs. In his previous game too, Sri Lanka’s Kusal Perera was hell-bent on taking Kuldeep’s bowling to the cleaners. But he once more made a fine comeback to finish with figures of 1 for 31.
The love of bowling can also be seen by the amount of hard work that he has gone behind the scenes: Be it tweaking his run-up or adding new variations to his quiver. Kuldeep has also returned from a serious knee injury, alongside loss of form.
Kapil Pandey, his coach, had once said to this writer: “I told him to be positive, never accept defeat.” His pupil seems to be following that advice to the T. Even India’s opponents in the final, Pakistan, would likely agree about Kuldeep’s most impressive quality.
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