Brad Hogg has helped me a lot, is like a father: Kuldeep Yadav

If there ever was a list of individuals who accidentally became cricketers, Kuldeep Yadav would head it being the torchbearer of chinaman bowling in India at the moment. Kuldeep, who never took cricket and his first love Table Tennis seriously as a young boy, turned towards cricketer on his father, Ram Singh’s insistence.

“Actually, I was not really interested in cricket but my Dad pushed me to play. I was lucky my family believed and supported me.” the UP spinner said told CricTracker during a chat after the first day’s play in the Ranji Trophy 2016-17 round 5, match against Punjab.

To top it, Kuldeep wanted to become a pacer but gave spin a shot after the disappointed left-armer had to consider his coach’s advice. To his dismay, Kuldeep delivered leg-spin on the first ball he bowled.

“It started when I was 10 years old I guess. I was a fast bowler initially but my coach Kapil (Pandey) asked me to bowl left-arm spin. I started to bowl left-arm leg-spin and my coach wanted me to continue the same. That’s how chinaman bowling came to me which is now my profession.”

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He has had a decent last three months in the domestic circuit. He first finished Duleep Trophy as the leading wicket-taker with 17 wickets. With the bat, he scored 121 runs in the 4 innings including a fifty. Following that, Kuldeep has continued his magic in the Ranji Trophy as well by picking up 19 wickets in the first four rounds including 2 five-wicket hauls. He has done even better with the bat scoring 259 runs in 7 innings with 2 fifties including a career best of 71 in the current game. (Numbers as at the end of Day 2 vs Punjab)

“Till now it’s pretty good with both bat and ball. So far I have performed really well with both bat and ball. Hopefully, I can continue this form for the rest of the season and good things will be coming up in the next one year.”

Talking about some good batting stints from him this season, Kuldeep told to CricTracker: “In the first game here (at Hyderabad vs Madhya Pradesh), I scored 60 runs. So I was very confident about my batting and I have been working on my batting also. So it is paying off.”

Kuldeep Yadav might have to wait for a little while before he makes his International debut but he was a part of Team India’s training campaign ahead of the New Zealand Test series. Taking about his experiences while bowling under the watchful eyes of Anil Kumble, the 21-years-old said, “That was a good experience for me. It was very good learning for me to work with Anil Bhai. Really important for me to go there and bowl to some of the senior players of the Indian team.

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“From there onwards, it started to make me feel that it’s easier to bowl in Ranji Trophy after bowling to someone like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane. It feels easier to bowl against the domestic batsmen.”

He has richly rated the influence Brad Hogg has brought to his bowling. He, in fact, treats the 45-year old veteran chinaman as a fatherly figure, who has more bowling experience than Kuldeep’s age. “He is the man who supported me a lot when I was sitting out. During net sessions, he always said to me to bowl a particular way. He taught me how to bowl the flipper, chinaman, how to vary the pace and everything.

“He is like a father you can say to have in our team. So it really helped me. It was a good experience in KKR to interact with someone like Hogg and other senior players.” the Kanpur boy added.

There have also been occasions when the chinaman who has the knack of picking wickets has gone wicketless. Talking about such situations, Kuldeep said, “It happens sometimes. You get wickets, you don’t get wickets. So it’s nothing to worry about. My performance when I don’t get wickets in the first innings doesn’t change in the second innings. So it’s a part of the game. It’s not good for you if you keeping worrying.”

As told to Sampath Bandarupalli