India vs New Zealand: Should chinaman Kuldeep Yadav get a Test cap?

With the then captain MS Dhoni out due to injury, the belligerent Virat Kohli was placed at the helm in the first Test against Australia in Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2014-15. Unlike Dhoni, Kohli believes in ‘horses for courses’, and is usually seen chopping and changing the starting XI. In his maiden Test as a captain, he replaced the stalwart Ravichandran Ashwin with the leg-spinner Karn Sharma. His intention was clear: play fire with fire. Like planned, Kohli used the leg-spinner as his mode of attack. Given his inexperience in the leadership arena, the decision backfired. Karn was taken to the cleaners, so much so that he has not been drafted in the Indian squad since. Also read: Should Gambhir be selected for IND-NZ Test series?

India won the four-match series 2-0 on the Caribbean shore. Now, they are scheduled to play 13 Tests at home: three against New Zealand, five against England, three against Australia and one against Bangladesh.

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The timetable indeed seems gruelling, which means the team management has to make sure that the cricketers stay in the best of their health.

In one of the press conferences during West Indies tour, Kohli clearly stated that he won’t make many changes in the squad. Given the long season at home, it sounds fair and square. Players will have to spend time to gel with one another. In addition, apart from few batsmen, their performances have been up to the mark.

On the other hand, there are a few cricketers who have been making headlines in the domestic competitions. And one of them is the slow left-arm chinaman Kuldeep Yadav. The joint highest wicket-taker of the ongoing Duleep Trophy, Kuldeep has been catching the batsmen in spell with his wizardly spin bowling. Also read: Tillakaratne Dilshan: Maverick among legends

He is accurate. He reads batsmen’s footwork well. He has variations in his armoury. He doesn’t panic when the batsmen go all guns blazing. He takes wickets as well as puts a lid on the runs. In short, the 21-year-old is a complete package, and deserves to feature in the upcoming India-New Zealand Test series.

Kuldeep started as a fast bowler when he first started playing cricket. Later, his coach Kapil Pandey asked him to bowl chinaman. The transition was not easy. He struggled to bowl in the right areas. However, the change worked in his favour, as he displayed a stupendous performance at U-19 level.

He made sure he takes a wicket every time he was handed the ball. In U-19 World Cup, he raised the bar even higher. He took a hat-trick against Scotland, and he finished the tournament as the joint second-highest wicket-taker.

He has a wily wrong ‘un in his arsenal, which he used to outfox the great Sachin Tendulkar in one of the net sessions for Mumbai Indians (MI). When he was picked by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), he got the opportunity to bowl with mystery spinner Sunil Narine. In three IPL games, he picked up 6 wickets at 16.66. Also read: Gautam Gambhir: Lone warrior fighting hard against time to stage comeback

All in all, rarely does he fail to translate his talent into performance.

In the ongoing Duleep Trophy, he has picked up 14 wickets at 21.07, including a five-for. Agreed that the tournament is being played on subcontinental tracks, but let’s not disregard the fact that it is being played under the lights and with a pink ball, the factors that is unlikely to support the spinners.

However, in pacer-friendly conditions, Kuldeep dictated terms and dismissed the likes of Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel and Shreyas Gopal in the first innings of the tournament opener. In the second innings, he upped the ante, scalping 6 wickets. In his second encounter, he took 4 for 78. As a matter of fact, had the match not been abandoned due to rain, his wickets column would have scaled up.

All said and done, India already have three spinners in their ranks: Ashwin (off-spinner), Ravindra Jadeja (slow left-arm orthodox) and Amit Mishra (leg-spinner). To put things into perspective, all three can use their bat to good effect as well. In fact, Ashwin already has three hundreds at international level. Jadeja has three triple-hundreds to his name in First-Class cricket. Mishra is armed with Test-cricket technique, and his 84 at the Oval is termed class-apart. Also read – Fake FB Wall: Yuvraj Singh’s status update after YWC Fashion launch gets hilarious comments

Hence, the question beckons: does Team India need someone like Kuldeep in the squad?

Given the variety of spinners, India actually do not need him. However, matches will be played in India, and the home team is allowed to announce a squad for every match. On the other hand, India have pacers such as Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav.

Considering matches will be played on dust-bowls, having four pacers in the ranks will not make any logic, which gives an edge to Kuldeep. For him to feature, India will have to do away with either of the pacers. And the team needs a back-up spinner more than a back-up pacer.

(Kaustubh S. Mayekar, a reporter at CricketCountry, played cricket at U-16 level. Like his idol Rahul Dravid, he often shadow-practises cricket shots. His Twitter handle is @kaumedy_)