Harbhajan Singh Feels Kuldeep Yadav Will Have A Tough Road Ahead After His ODI Comeback Against West Indies

Those present at the Dubai training facility were horrified seeing his condition as he lay there writhing in pain, waiting to be stretchered out.  In a week’s time, he underwent major knee surgery in Mumbai, which cast doubts on how long it would take for him to get fit for competitive cricket.

Harbhajan Singh: Kuldeep Yadav Will Have A Tough Road Ahead

Kuldeep Yadav was named in India’s 18-man ODI squad for the upcoming 3-match series against West Indies from February 6 in Ahmedabad. The chinaman spinner hasn’t been regularly playing for the senior national team since the 2019 World Cup and injury issues have forced the left-arm spinner from being a regular for his Indian Premier League franchise, Kolkata Knight Riders.

Kuldeep Yadav has played only 14 IPL matches in the last 3 years. Since the 2019 World Cup, Kuldeep Yadav has played only 14 ODI and 6 T20Is with his last international assignment coming in July 2021.

Harbhajan Singh reckons it will be a very tough road ahead for Kuldeep Yadav as he didn’t have proper domestic games before being named in the ODI squad. Otherwise, all that he could have done was to wait at home to hear from the BCCI if it would hold the now-postponed Ranji Trophy, where he was supposed to lead Uttar Pradesh.

“It will be a very tough road ahead for Kuldeep. He hasn’t had any proper domestic games under his belt and it’s not easy to make an international comeback just like that,” one of India’s greatest spinners, Harbhajan Singh said when asked about his expectations.

“He wasn’t playing regularly before surgery and when you are making a comeback in white ball, the first thing that’s at the back of your mind is ‘I don’t want to get hit’. So it’s like striking a balance as you are naturally dealing with a lot of insecurities. It’s a test of mental fortitude,” said Harbhajan Singh, who saw Kuldeep from close quarters at KKR nets.

But Kuldeep Yadav has the requisite skills and the ‘Turbanator’ expects that he can get a few early wickets and make it a different ball game.

“Let me make it clear. If he gets a couple of early wickets, he will be a different bowler but things may not go as per plan. It might take some time for him to get back the rhythm. My only suggestion would be that stick with him since you have shown conviction based on his past performances and give him enough time and confidence. He is a man who can deliver the goods for India,” said Harbhajan Singh, the holder of 700-plus international wickets.

The national selectors made an exception for him as he is one of the rare cricketers who is coming back without having to prove his match fitness as there is no domestic cricket going on at the moment. Good luck finally seems to be going Kuldeep Yadav’s way after enduring rough times as his exclusion from the playing XI wasn’t always a cricketing one during the earlier regime of Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri.

Due to injuries or poor form of some elite spinners, the fact is that the 27-year-old Kanpur man is back in the national mix after nearly three years. During this period, he was first called, “India’s No. 1 overseas spinner” by Ravi Shastri after a five-wicket haul in Sydney, only to not play a single Test in the next two years.

Kuldeep Yadav Is Mentally Very Tough And Hasn’t Lost Skills: Kapil Pandey

Kuldeep Yadav’s childhood coach Kapil Pandey is a former first-class cricketer from Services and has nurtured him since he was only nine years old when he came to his camp at the Rovers ground in Kanpur.

“My boy (Kuldeep) is mentally very tough. He hasn’t lost an iota of skill,” Pandey, who has worked with Kuldeep after he resumed his skills training said.

“We followed the routine provided by the NCA. Initially, he was told to start bowling two to three overs per day to just get the feel. Obviously at the start, he would be slightly wary about the state of his knee while landing but with time, it became perfectly okay,” Pandey, a former Indian Navy man said.

The coach said that it will be wrong to presume that Kuldeep Yadav hasn’t bowled a lot as he arranged for red-ball practice games at the STI ground where he bowled to the U-19 and U-23 state level players.

“Since Kuldeep was supposed to lead in Ranji Trophy, we were practicing with red ball and he played three to four red ball practice games and looked very comfortable,” Pandey said.

Kapil Pandey said that in the three practice games, he had bowled between 15 to 20 overs a day.

“I think it is a decent amount of overs. He would bowl in three spells of seven to eight in the first one followed by two six or seven over spells. He was releasing the ball well. He was giving it air and also getting a lot of drift and got it to turn both ways,” Pandey said.

In fact, during the skills session, Kapil Pandey got Kuldeep Yadav to bowl to more left-handers as southpaws had played him well.

“He was practising taking the ball away from left-handers (conventional left-arm leg-break or ‘chinaman’) rather than bowling googlies (stock delivery for slow left-arm orthodox).”

Kapil Pandey believes that it’s all in the mind as far as comebacks are concerned.

“Skill is an essential part and I don’t agree with anyone who believed that Kuldeep had lost his mojo. Yes, rhythm was an issue but his skills remained intact.I can visualise that my boy will get another hat-trick,” Pandey signed off.

Kuldeep Yadav is the only Indian bowler to take two ODI hat-tricks and his T20I record isn’t bad either with 41 wickets in 23 games with an economy of 7.15. In ODIs, he has 107 scalps besides his name in 65 games averaging 28.34. Both Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal were dropped from India’s squad for the 2021 T20I World Cup last year, but will be seen together after a while against West Indies.