India lost their first ever home ODI series to New Zealand, and several reasons were cited for the losses. While management is mainly blamed for poor selections and Captain Gill is criticized for making wrong strategies that have backfired, the individual excellence of the players is equally responsible.
The former Indian wicketkeeper has trained his gun on spinner Kuldeep Yadav, who has been India’s leading bowler in the last few series but failed to score this time. In three matches, Kuldeep took just 3 wickets at an economy of 7.28.
Robin Uthappa blames Kuldeep Yadav for taking things for granted
Former Indian wicketkeeper-batsman and Kuldeep Yadav’s former KKR teammate Robin Uthappa has responded to Team India’s star left-arm spinner for his poor performance in the three-match ODI home series against New Zealand.
Uthappa pointed out that when players go through purple patches during their careers, they sometimes tend to take things for granted. He thought a similar case would happen with Kuldeep Yadav.
“One of the things that can often happen with athletes is that you go through a good period, and not intentionally, but sometimes you take things for granted. And because of that, one thing goes wrong, it’s like that one little domino that goes wrong, and it’s all a cascading effect,” Robin Uthappa said in his YouTube video.
Lack of trajectory has made Kuldeep’s bowling ineffective – Robin Uthappa
He also explained how excessive workload can also affect spinners to a great extent, and that the effect is not limited to pace bowlers as they have to steam in with the ball. He pointed out that the 31-year-old Indian cricketer has played far too many matches for India lately.
“It could be that one thing that happened with Kuldeep three months ago. As he started playing a lot more Test matches, maybe as his body got tired, he started delivering that ball, which stopped getting bigger,” Uthappa noted.
Kuldeep’s biggest struggle in the series was against New Zealand batsman Daryl Mitchell, who had a dream feel in the series. He finished with over 350 runs and scored some of his runs against the Chinese bowler.
Uthappa also noted that even if Kuldeep threw his best delivery to the batsman, it turned out to be ineffective due to the low trajectory. The ball needs to have a big dip for any spinner to get wickets, but in Mitchell’s case he got under the ball nicely.
“If he doesn’t have that extra six inches of depth in that dip, it could be the difference between cheating him and hitting him outside off stump for a six on the ground. That could affect his confidence, and that could affect Kuldeep operating from a defensive state rather than an aggressive state,” Uthappa further added.
“His mentality is his biggest advantage,” Robin Uthappa said
Uthappa opined that Kuldeep Yadav is most effective when he has an aggressive mindset as that is his biggest strength, but batters like Mitchell can force him to be defensive which then disorients the wily spinner.
“Kuldeep is the kind of bowler who can be pushed into a mindset where he becomes defensive. And once you push him into that mindset, he takes away whatever advantage he possesses as a bowler. His mentality, I think, is his biggest advantage,” Uthappa added.
Kuldeep Yadav’s form will be key for India in the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup, although Varun Chakravarthy and Axar Patel are still playing in that format, who are also expert cheaters.
ALSO READ: Daryl Mitchell takes world’s No. 1 batsman spot from Virat Kohli; Rohit Sharma slides under the Afghanistani
#Kuldeep #Yadav #faces #baffling #accusations #granted #Zealand #ODI #disaster