Kuldeep to Chahal: Miss you when you aren’t at the other end

Napier, January 24 

Like pacers, spinners too hunt in pairs. Maybe that’s why Kuldeep Yadav feels the “pangs of separation” when spin twin Yuzvendra Chahal isn’t operating from the other end. The wrist-spinners have so far played 36 ODIs each and will be key to India’s chances in the upcoming World Cup. Of late, India have resisted the temptation to field both of them together, with Ravindra Jadeja pairing up with either of them in Australia. 

In the first ODI against New Zealand, they were reunited, and responded with six wickets between them.  “When you don’t play, I miss a lot of aspects,” Kuldeep told Chahal during an interview for the fun segment of bcci.tv.

“We understand each other’s bowling and also the track. It’s not always that we are bowling in tandem. There are times when you bowl earlier and I come in later, but we talk a lot about how the pitch is behaving and how the batsman is playing,” said Yadav, who picked up four wickets in India’s comprehensive win in the first ODI. “We use the same variations but it confuses the batsmen. We got a lot of wickets in South Africa, grabbed a few in India and now we are getting a lot in New Zealand,” said the UP spinner. 

The performance was even more satisfying considering the track at the McLean Park was flat and didn’t offer too much assistance for bowlers. “It was a batting wicket with not much turn on offer. The ball was skidding a bit, and it was hitting the bat well. So we had to bowl good areas along with using variations,” he said. — PTI