For Kuldeep Yadav, it's all about making the overs count

Kuldeep has been excellent in the Asia Cup so far. ©AFP

Mid-June in Beckenham, Kuldeep Yadav stood on the sidelines of India's warm-up game and squinted at the surface. He thought it looked good for spinners: dry, with just enough bite and some bounce to work with too. He said as much in an informal press meet.

A five-Test series against England was about to begin, and with no Ravichandran Ashwin in the squad, Kuldeep seemed to have allowed himself a little hope.

The pitches, when the series began, were exactly that: dry, flat, crying out for something wild. India had the wild thing, but he never got a game.

It was not for lack of skill. Kuldeep had already reworked his bowling, straightened his run-up, made his rhythm more aggressive and stopped his hand from falling away. That journey of making himself a technically better, more sustainable bowler at the highest level was behind him. He had even won Tests at home with those changes, flipped series, showed the ability to deliver on demand even with Ashwin and Jadeja in the XI. But none of that was enough. Not when the question was balance.

Balance, that old cricketing black box of selection. When injuries didn't keep him out, Kuldeep lost his spot to someone who could bat. India now like their allrounders, their finger spinners who could defend the red ball better and hit the white ball longer, even if their ceiling with the ball was lower.

Flat tracks may demand magic, but team sheets rarely do.

That irony followed him to the Asia Cup. Few expected him to play here either. It was the start of the season, the pitches were fresh, unlike the tires track from the Champions Trophy earlier this year, and Shivam Dube was putting in the hours in the net session. To go with that, this Gautam Gambhir-coached side loves its allrounders. Kuldeep isn't one. But they also love their spinners in limited-overs cricket, so in came Kuldeep at the cost of Arshdeep Singh.

Two matches into this Asia Cup, he has six wickets in 24 balls. Player of the Match against UAE. Player of the Match against Pakistan. His last T20I before this? The World Cup final in Barbados. From the bench in England to the honours board in Dubai, this distance wasn't covered in overs by Kuldeep. But time. And some of it must have been really frustrating.

"It's challenging when you're not playing," Kuldeep has said during this Asia Cup. "Rhythm is very important when you are playing your first game after a while. If you play regular games, your rhythm is set. You have an idea of bowling, how you are spending time in the field, how you are reacting on the field."

In the match against UAE though, Kuldeep's first for India since the Champions Trophy final in March, the rhythm was a non-issue. He started with a tight over before unleashing in his next. Rahul Chopra chanced his arms at a flighted delivery and was caught in the deep. Muhammad Waseem, the captain, then swept and missed. Lbw. Harshit Kaushik, younger and overeager, lunged at a wider googly and was bowled. Three wickets in the space of an over, three different dismissals, and the full range of wrist spin at play.

Against Pakistan, the field at one point of time told you the story. Slip, leg slip, silly mid-on, with Kuldeep on a hat-trick. Hasan Nawaz slogged and top-edged into Axar's hands, and then, off the very next ball, Mohammad Nawaz trapped first ball by the googly. The ball had turned in too sharply, too quickly. He reviewed; three reds on the screen. Out.

"I know Kuldeep was with the Test team," his T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav said after the Pakistan match. "He couldn't get an opportunity to play but he was working really hard on his fitness, on his bowling and you can see it. Two games in a row, he has won it for us."

Just like that, Kuldeep has six wickets already in the tournament. In fact, India have been so well-rounded, so much better that those around them that they have barely looked like needing his full quota of overs.

Kuldeep, while picking his second PoTM award in this Asia Cup, insisted that he is still not bowling his best and that he's been using "too many variations". But the numbers are what they are. While his pace has been under 90kph more often than not, the variations of pace, the line of his googly and the energy on the ball has done the trick. Like Mike Hesson, the Pakistan coach, pointed out: India's spin, well most of it, was not mystery, not magic, just pressure sustained until the mistake came.

And the mistakes have come against Kuldeep plenty. That's the thing with wrist spin. It is a wild art. It can go wrong. But then again, it can also go very right. Flat pitches demand it. India resisted it in England but they couldn't in Dubai. And given the chance to be back in India colours, Kuldeep has made every over count, just as he thought he might back in Beckenham, staring at a pitch, waiting for his chance.

© Cricbuzz

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