Kuldeep Yadav, who idolised Wasim Akram and wanted to bowl fast, talks about his journey, from his coach convincing him to bowl spin to Anil Kumble advising him about the art of bowling long spells
Arun Venugopal12-Oct-2016When Kuldeep Yadav bowled chinaman for the first time, he had no idea what it was called. Left to him, he wouldn’t have bowled spin, or even turned up at a cricket net. As with many Indian kids, Kuldeep found himself chasing unfulfilled dreams of the previous generation. Kuldeep’s father Ram Singh, a brick-field businessman in Kanpur, had wanted his younger brother, Janardhan Singh, to succeed as a professional cricketer. Janardhan played district-level cricket, but couldn’t graduate to the next level.Ramsingh was disappointed his brother’s career didn’t take off, but he wasn’t going to accept defeat; instead, he decided to invest in his son. When Kuldeep was 11, he was sent to a cricket academy to train alongside his uncle. Kuldeep remembers being a “timepass” cricketer initially; he played a lot of table tennis, but it wasn’t as if he wanted to make a career of it either. “I was too young to decide what to do, so I just studied, played and generally had fun for about a year,” he says.Kuldeep’s coach Kapil Pandey, however, thought he had enough talent for serious cricket, but insisted he switch to spin bowling. Kuldeep wasn’t happy about it: he idolised Wasim Akram and was obsessed with fast bowling. “Even my dad isn’t very tall, so my coach thought I wouldn’t shoot up enough to become a fast bowler,” Kuldeep says. Pandey was proved right as Kuldeep grew no taller than five feet eight inches.When Kuldeep gave spin bowling a shot, he didn’t tweak the ball like a fingerspinner would and instead bowled it from the back of his hand. Kuldeep says he doesn’t know why he did it, but Pandey liked what he saw. “He was impressed with the way my hand opened up at the time of release. He thought I had a rare talent and I should continue bowling that way.”Kuldeep is glad he heeded his coach’s advice. “If I had remained a fast bowler, I would have probably never got to meet Wasim sir,” he says with a chuckle. “When I told Wasim about it [years later, at Kolkata Knight Riders], he was happy that I stuck to spin bowling.”Thereon, Kuldeep never slacked off, packing in two practice sessions every day in the morning and evening. That there was no reference point – there weren’t any chinaman bowlers around him to emulate – wasn’t a hindrance to learning. Kuldeep would try to copy the action of Ravindra Singh Chauhan, a legspinner in his academy. He would also watch videos of his idol Shane Warne and observe his action and rhythm closely. Even now, Kuldeep goes back to Warne’s videos, particularly from the 2005 Ashes, whenever he feels he has a problem with his bowling.When he was 14 or 15, Kuldeep was considered too young to play for Uttar Pradesh’s Under-17s. In a year or two, Kuldeep was a regular in the India under-19 side, but didn’t make the squad for the 2012 World Cup. Kuldeep, then only 17, wasn’t perturbed; he knew his time would come. Two years later, he went on to take a hat-trick against Scotland in the Under-19 World Cup and also became the joint second-highest wicket-taker in the tournament, along with Kagiso Rabada and Namibia’s Bredell Wessels.In 2012, Kuldeep’s first IPL experience was little more than a brief flirtation with Mumbai Indians. A more purposeful, career-defining relationship was forged with Kolkata Knight Riders, who signed him up two years later. While he didn’t get a game in the 2014 IPL season, Kuldeep finished as Knight Riders’ second-highest wicket-taker in the Champions League T20 later that year, as the team finished runners-up. A little over a fortnight later he made his first-class debut.Kuldeep remembers making an impression on his first day at the Knight Riders camp by dismissing Gautam Gambhir in the nets. He is grateful to Gambhir for playing him in the first XI despite the presence of senior spinners such as Sunil Narine, Brad Hogg, Shakib Al Hasan and Piyush Chawla. More reassuring was how Gambhir never fretted over Kuldeep going for runs.”He would just say, ‘it doesn’t matter, he scored off a good ball,'” Kuldeep says. “When I was playing CLT20, Shoaib Malik took 18 [21] runs off me in an over. So, I went up to Gauti and said I wanted to bowl from the other side because the end I was bowling from had shorter boundaries. Gauti bhai insisted I bowl from the same end. I thought to myself, (what has he done).”The game he’s referring to is the semifinal against Hobart Hurricanes. It proved an important, even if chastening, lesson on second-guessing the batsman’s motives. Kuldeep had started well, conceding only 10 runs in three overs and taking the wicket of Ben Dunk. The first ball of his fourth over to Malik was a dot. Then Malik smashed him for two sixes and two fours.Gambhir’s faith in Yadav has been career-defining for the spinner•BCCI”[Malik] told me after the match I was bowling very well, and that he was reading my mind during my first three overs,” Kuldeep says. “He knew exactly when I would flight the ball or push it faster. When you come up against a big player, he is always one step ahead of you.”A key figure in Kuldeep’s development has been fellow left-arm wristspinner Hogg. Apart from teaching him how to bowl the flipper – Kuldeep admits he needs to become stronger to bowl it as well as his senior partner – Hogg has hand-held Kuldeep through match situations. During a match against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 2016 IPL season, Kuldeep, after a tight over, was anxious to attack in the quest for wickets.With Sunrisers chasing 172, Hogg knew the batsmen themselves would be under pressure to go after the bowling, and advised Kuldeep just to keep things tight. Kuldeep duly dismissed Shikhar Dhawan in his next over.Hogg has also endeared himself to Kuldeep by being a sounding board. “He has asked me to Skype him if there is any problem I want to discuss with him,” Kuldeep says. “That’s a big deal for a youngster when someone you look up to takes a keen interest in you.”Kuldeep went through a traumatic period during the Ranji Trophy last year. While his numbers – 13 wickets from five games for Uttar Pradesh at an average of nearly 47 – were middling at best, he believes he could have done with a few more opportunities. “I was struggling so much to play for my state, but I don’t know why I wasn’t being picked,” he says. “I had come back after having picked wickets playing for India A, but I would be dropped here. I felt like I was being ignored.”One of the reasons he doesn’t find a regular place in the UP team is the presence of Piyush Chawla as the lead spinner, especially on pitches that don’t require more than one spinner. It’s also possible his success in the shorter formats has led to him being typecast as a limited-overs bowler. Kuldeep, however, insists he is a classical spinner whose heart lies in the longer format.”If you are a spinner, you should turn and flight the ball. I can’t fire it in fast; that is beyond me,” he says. “I love Test cricket the best. I get a lot of enjoyment playing four-day cricket, and my bowling style suits four-day cricket because I flight the ball.”Help, though, was forthcoming from two senior members of the side – Chawla and Suresh Raina. “PC supported me a lot, and asked me to keep working hard,” he says. “Raina is very caring. He always calls and keeps tabs on what is happening with me. I worked very hard on my bowling during that phase. Such phases are part and parcel of life – sometimes you do well and sometimes you don’t.”By the time the Duleep Trophy began – a day-night affair that trialled the pink ball for the first time in India’s first-class cricket – Kuldeep was more at peace with himself and finished as the leading wicket-taker with 17 wickets in three matches. With India’s head coach Anil Kumble and then selectors Vikram Rathore and Saba Karim in attendance, Kuldeep picked up four wickets in the final. Yuvraj Singh, his captain at India Red, called him (magician).Kuldeep’s performances in the tournament didn’t earn him a place in either the Test or the ODI sides against New Zealand, but they didn’t go unnoticed, as he was invited to train with the Indian team. Only once before had he been part of the senior squad when he was picked for the ODI series against West Indies in 2014.”When you are with the team and training with them, you feel that you are a part of the team,” he says. “I had some good conversations with Anil this time. He spoke to me about how I should bowl when the body starts tiring and what I should do while bowling long spells. He would stand next to me while I was bowling and took very good care of me.”The more I am used to bowling to batsmen like Virat [Kohli] or Jinks [Ajinkya Rahane] and Puji [Cheteshwar Pujara] , it’s easier to understand where I stand and how I can improve when I go back to Ranji Trophy. They tell me what’s the right pace to bowl and what variations I could bowl.”Kuldeep didn’t have to wait too long to put some of that wisdom into practice, as he was picked for UP’s season-opener against Madhya Pradesh. But he would know from experience that getting there is only half the job done.
