Kuldeep Yadav was picked in the first ODI against West Indies in Barbados ahead of senior leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, and the left-arm wrist-spinner vindicated the management’s decision by bamboozling the West Indies batters with his magical spin-bowling.
In the first ODI in Barbados, where India bowled West Indies out for a paltry score of 114, Kuldeep Yadav returned with stunning figures of 3-2-6-4. It included the big wicket of the West Indies skipper Shai Hope, who was his team’s highest scorer with 43 runs while his rest other three wickets helped India clean up the West Indies tail with ease.
West Indies have historically, and famously, struggled against leg-spin or wrist-spin bowling. And the story remained pretty much the same when they encountered the trickery of Kuldeep Yadav.
Kuldeep was introduced when more than half of the WI lineup had already been dismissed, after 18 overs at the score of 97/6. On his third ball, he struck with the wicket of Dominic Drakes, plumb lbw. His second over was a wicket-maiden, including the dismissal of Yannic Cariah, again lbw, this time India needed help of the DRS.
Kuldeep bagged two wickets in his third over – Hope lbw while missing a reverse sweep and Jayden Seales, caught by Hardik Pandya at leg-slip after an inside-edge from the left-hander.
Watch: Kuldeep Yadav’s magical 4-wicket haul stuns WI
The exceptional spell of Kuldeep Yadav!
4/6 in 3 overs, Kuldeep keeps performing. pic.twitter.com/PBDkT38MEJ
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) July 27, 2023
Speaking at the mid-innings break, Kuldeep Yadav said:
“The way the pacers bowled was really good, Mukesh and Shardul in particular. And then Jadeja and I could handle things, the ball was spinning a bit. We had to control our lengths and the wickets were easy to get. I have been working on my rhythm and it has been amazing. The ball is coming out nicely and I’m very pleased with it. I have also been varying the pace and in the white-ball format, my focus is on hitting the right lengths. (On bowling googlies) Depends on the condition and situation, when they were 5 down I could bowl my variations. When the left-hander came in, I was trying to bowl away from him. To be very honest, I felt this wicket was really good for spin.”
