Between the end of Delhi Capitals’s campaign in IPL 2025 on May 24 and India’s T20 Asia Cup opener against UAE on September 10, Kuldeep played just one game — for Central Zone against North East in the Duleep Trophy in Bengaluru
Kuldeep Yadav during his 4-7 against UAE in Dubai last week. Pic/AFP
It couldn’t have been easy being Kuldeep Yadav on the entertaining Test tour of England this summer. More than one surface, including in the opening Test in Leeds, practically demanded that India make use of the magic of the left-arm wrist-spinner, but much as first-time captain Shubman Gill and Gautam Gambhir would have loved to field the game-changer, they simply couldn’t accommodate him in their plans.
His challenges in England sum up Kuldeep’s troubled journey in Test cricket. Despite taking four wickets on debut on a true deck in Dharamsala against Australia in March 2017, and despite being anointed India’s No. 1 spinner by then coach Ravi Shastri after his maiden five-wicket haul in Sydney in January 2019, the 30-year-old’s Test appearances have been restricted to 13 outings (56 wickets) in eight and a half years.
Between the end of Delhi Capitals’s campaign in IPL 2025 on May 24 and India’s T20 Asia Cup opener against UAE on September 10, Kuldeep played just one game — for Central Zone against North East in the Duleep Trophy in Bengaluru. Across the two innings, he had figures of 0-97 from 32 overs; the lack of wickets didn’t matter so much as getting his rhythm back in a match scenario, even if a red-ball match wasn’t ideal preparation for a white-ball tournament.
Teased the batters
Before last Wednesday, Kuldeep hadn’t played a T20I for more than 14 months, but it didn’t seem that way when he teased and tormented UAE’s bemused batters during a 13-ball spell that netted him 4-7. The wickets helped, of course, but what was more noteworthy was how immediately he hit his spots. The impish smile that each false shot triggered reflected the enjoyment of being back on the biggest stage, the satisfaction of knowing that he was on top of his game.
Just when the ‘only UAE’ spectre was beginning to raise its head, Kuldeep turned in another wonderful spell against Pakistan on Sunday, with 3-18 from his full allotment. A Shaheen Shah Afridi six in his last over slightly dented his figures. Unlike fast bowlers who react to being hit with a bouncer, a spinner’s best bet is to bruise egos rather than body and limb. The ripping wrong ’un the ball after being slog-swept over mid-wicket that Afridi somehow managed to keep out was the perfect riposte.
India’s spin trio on song
In tandem with Varun Chakravarthy and Axar Patel, Kuldeep forms a deadly triumvirate that constitutes Suryakumar Yadav’s most potent strike force. The three spinners work as a unit, complementing rather than competing with each other. Axar is the most experienced but clearly, Kuldeep is the leader of that pack even though Chakravarthy, the newest of the lot to international cricket, has supplanted both and climbed to the top of the T20I bowling charts.
Given their professed reliance on spin, Kuldeep and his fellow tweakers will be vital to India’s designs of going all the way in the tournament. Especially in Kuldeep’s case, the illusion of turn rather than turn itself is part of the enjoyable ride, unless one is the nonplussed batter.
18
No. of wickets claimed by Kuldeep Yadav in his last eight T20Is since January 2024
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