Chattogram: On his return to Test cricket after 22 months, left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav had an eventful time against Bangladesh on day two of first Test at Chattogram.
After scoring a career-best 40 in a stand of 92 with Ravichandran Ashwin (58) to help India post a competitive 404 from an overnight score of 278/6, Kuldeep would find proper turn and bounce with the ball on a slow pitch to spin a web around Bangladesh batters and pick 4/33 to leave the hosts’ reeling at 133/8 on stumps, trailing India by 271 runs and need 72 more runs to avoid follow-on.
Kuldeep feels that a pursuit to be better in rhythm has helped him in getting his quick pace and finding turn. “I haven’t done nothing much with my action. It has been a year now, just trying to be a bit better with my rhythm, which has helped me with my pace and turn. After I got injured, I started working on my rhythm, trying to be a bit quicker – that’s helping me a lot,” he said to broadcasters after the end of day’s play.
Kuldeep had instant success when he had captain Shakib Al Hasan caught at first slip off a leg-break on his second delivery of the match. He then took out Nurul Hasan, who tried to flick off a leg-break, but Shubman Gill moved swiftly to his right to take a sharp catch at short-leg.
In his next over, Kuldeep had two more scalps – spinning past the inside edge of Rahim to trap him plumb lbw on the front pad and cramping Taijul Islam for room with a googly, forcing him to chop on to his stumps.
“I was a bit nervous at the start. I was a bit lucky to the first wicket in the first over. Got the momentum back. After a couple of overs I started feeling good, I was mixing my deliveries and was getting good turn as well. Tried both the angles – over the wicket and round the wicket, and I was actually loving it,” added Kuldeep.
He went to explain that he had been working on using angles more to fetch more turn and bounce in his bowling. “I have been working on both the angles, over and around. I tried that when I played for India A a few months ago (against New Zealand A at home).”
“So bowling around the wicket was good. When you’re a wrist-spinner bowling with the Kookaburra ball, you’ll definitely get turn and bounce on such wickets.”
Asked about how the conditions were when he batted, Kuldeep said, “When I was batting, I thought that there was not much in it for the spinners. I didn’t face any discomfort while batting. I thought it’ll be good for batting.”
(IANS)
