On Friday, the Indian fielding coach, R Sridhar quashed all the rumors regarding the fitness of the Indian chinaman, Kuldeep Yadav. He also said that the irregularity of being in the playing XI might’ve affected Kuldeep’s bowling. Yadav has been fairly inconsistent in his international outings of late and conceded 84 runs in his 10 overs, but he also scalped a couple of wickets in the first ODI against New Zealand on Wednesday.
The chinaman was also dropped from the Test squad earlier this week, 12 months after head coach Ravi Shastri called him India’s number one spinner in overseas conditions. Talking about Kuldeep ahead of the second ODI, Sridhar said, “He is fully fit and he is not carrying any injury. He has played a lot of ODI cricket, played all three games against Australia. He didn’t play the T20s as Chahal was there. I think he is a good bowler and he has got all his skills. I think the New Zealand batters played him really well.”
India is currently 1-0 down in the three-match series but can take confidence from the fact that they can make a comeback in the last two ODI series against the West Indies and Australia to win 2-1.
ALSO READ: Shoaib Akhtar Lashed Out At PCB After U-19 Team’s Loss
Sridhar said, “When we come across a situation like this, we embrace it. We want these situations and the leadership group of this team wants to be in a tough situation…it’s always good to be under pressure.”
India’s fielding hasn’t been particularly good in the ongoing series against New Zealand, Sridhar didn’t blame the tight schedules for the “downward curve” despite conceding that hectic traveling is affecting the side’s practice plans. He said India’s fielding has at best average in the last four months.
The fielding coach said, “The West Indies series at home was somewhere we really dropped. We were average, to say the least. We keep reminding the players about attention to basic detail, each fielder has to be his own captain. So we empower the fielders so that they can become their own captain and they can take decisions on their own because the captain has got too much on his plate at certain times. That’s what we speak about.”
ALSO READ: Fans Laughed Out As Harbhajan Singh Wished Sreesanth On His Birthday
Speaking about workload management, Sridhar said the current fitness standards of the Indian cricketers are so good that the players have the tendency to adapt pretty quickly. He also said that the players will be spoken with to figure out the problem areas.
