Former India batter Robin Uthappa opined on Team India’s left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav’s poor performance in the recently concluded three-match home ODI series against New Zealand. He also claimed three wickets across as many matches at an economy rate of 7.28 as well. However, Uthappa said that players tend to take things for granted when they are going through a good form as well.
He explained in his YouTube video: “One of the things that can often happen with athletes, you’re going through a good period, and not intentionally, but you sometimes just take things for granted. And by virtue of doing that, one thing goes amiss; it’s like that one little domino going amiss, and it’s all a cascading effect. It could be that one thing that happened three months ago with Kuldeep. Because he started playing a lot more Test matches, maybe because his body got tired, where he started delivering that ball stopped getting taller.”
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“He’s trying to bowl his best ball, but since he’s bowling from a lower trajectory, there’s still that dip, but probably not as much dip happening, so it becomes easier for him to get under the ball. So, he doesn’t see that dip happening because that depth in the dip is very integral or key for a spinner to deceive a batter. If he doesn’t have that extra six inches of depth in that dip, that could be the difference between deceiving him and beating him outside the off stump to a six down the ground. That could impact his confidence, and that could impact Kuldeep operating from a defensive state rather than an aggressive state,” he further added.
He also added that Kuldeep Yadav becomes dangerous when he bowls with an aggressive approach as well. He also added that Yadav can, at times, be forced into bowling defensively by the batters as well.
“He [Kuldeep] does his best when he bowls aggressively, when he bowls to take wickets. But here we are, he’s playing up against a guy who he is bowling his best ball to, who’s got his favorite shot to that particular ball. He’s actually put himself in a space of disadvantage by not getting that extra little bit of dip. Kuldeep is the kind of bowler who can be pushed into that mentality where he becomes defensive. And the minute you push him into that mentality, he takes away every advantage that he possesses as a bowler. His mindset is his biggest advantage, according to me,” Robin Uthappa concluded.
