Napier: Like pacers, spinners too hunt in pairs and that’s why Kuldeep Yadav feels the ‘pangs of separation’ when spin twin Yuzvendra Chahal is not operating from the other end during India’s limited overs matches. Both wrist spinners have so far played 36 ODIs each and will be the key to India’s chances in the World Cup in England starting May 30.
In recent times, India once again tried the one wrist spinner-one finger spinner experiment but Ravindra Jadeja’s failure to trouble the batsmen has again brought the focus back on the chinaman-classical leg spin duo.
“When you don’t play, I miss a lot of aspects,” Kuldeep was seen telling Chahal during an interview conducted for the fun segment of ‘bcci.tv’.
“We understand each other’s bowling and also the track. It’s not always that we are bowling in tandem. There are times when you bowl earlier and I come in later, but we talk a lot about how the pitch is behaving and how the batsman is playing,” Kuldeep pointed out.
“We (he and Chahal) also use same variations but it confuses the batsman (who is thinking otherwise). We got a lot of wickets in South Africa, grabbed a few in India and now we are getting a lot in New Zealand,” said the UP spinner after the duo accounted for six of the Black Caps dismissals. Incidentally in the game, Kuldeep picked up four wickets while Chahal had two, the perfect ‘partners in crime’ for opposition batters.
The performance was even more satisfying considering that the track at McLean Park in Napier was flat and didn’t offer too much assistance for bowlers.
“It was a batting wicket with not much turn on offer. The ball was skidding a bit, and it was hitting the bat well. So we had to bowl good areas along with using variations,” Kuldeep said.
“When you use a certain kind of variation then it becomes important to pitch it in right areas which make it effective. Both me and you did it well,” Kuldeep complimented his partner.
PTI
