India in Sri Lanka: Eyes on Kuldeep as Gill and Co get ready for Lankan challenge
CHENNAI: Left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav made his Test debut in March 2017. Only a couple of years later, former India coach Ravi Shastri termed him India’s premier overseas spinner following his breathtaking 5/99 against Australia in Sydney. Despite being rated so highly by his coach, Test matches have been few and far between for the Uttar Pradesh tweaker in the last nine years.
Since his debut nine years ago, India played 88 Tests — 39 at home and 47 away apart from featuring in two matches at neutral venues. Kuldeep, on the contrary, featured in 18 of them so far. Those numbers reflect his arduous journey in Tests.From being hailed as the primary overseas spinner to playing bare minimum matches, the Chinaman from Kanpur has missed more matches than being part of them. Last year, India played 10 Tests and Kuldeep featured in just four. The previous year before last, he was in the playing XI of five matches out of 15 played by his team. More recently, he was part of the team that toured Ireland and England for 10-white ball matches but didn’t get a game despite an injury to spin all-rounder Washington Sundar.
Kapil Pandey, Kuldeep’s childhood coach from Kanpur, however, feels the two-Test series in Sri Lanka starting on August 15 could be a goldenopportunity for his ward to cement his spot in the playing XI. “I would say he should look at the positive aspect rather than thinking about the matches he missed. Sri Lanka are expected to prepare spin tracks for the two matches and Kuldeep is the only specialist spinner in the squad. So it’s an opportunity for him to once again announce to the world that he is the best spinner the country has,” Pandey told this daily.Amid all hues and cries over his omission from playing XI, the 31-year-old bowler signed a maiden County stint with Yorkshire County Cricket Club and fulfilled his 50-over commitments with a strong show. In his five 50-over matches, he claimed nine wickets. After national duty, he will once again return to his County team to play the last three County Championship fixtures of the season.confidence. We were in regular touch when he was playing there. It will definitely help him when he wears India whites against Sri Lanka,” signed off the coach.
The challenge begins Friday when India take on SLC XI in a three-day match in Colombo and Kuldeep will be raring to have a go at batters from the opposite ranks to prove his coach right.
The coach said the stint with Yorkshire is going to be a confidence booster for Kuldeep. “This time he prepared himself for India in England. Playing County cricket has never been our goal but yes a few good outings there always give a player a lot of confidence. We were in regular
India have been unbeaten in the Island nation in bilateral Test series since their 1-2 loss in 2008. They have toured Sri Lanka thrice and hadremaining two (2015: 2-1, 2017: 3-0). Spinners ruled the roost in these three tours with Ravichandran Ashwin turning out to be the lead wicket taker in the last two series. Amit Mishra complemented him well in 2015 while it was Ravindra Jadeja who played a key role two years later. Most importantly, primarily spinners from either side shone bright every time India toured Sri Lanka except the first series played in 1985. India have played eight bilateral series against Sri Lanka so far.