IPL 10: Brad Hogg hails Kuldeep Yadav as very different bowler

Former Australian cricketer Brad Hogg was one of the pioneers of the chinaman bowling in the modern era of cricket. In the recent times, the world cricket has seen the trade of chinaman bowling emerge as the most sought after asset for any team. One of such promising youngsters plying this trade is India’s Kuldeep Yadav. Kuldeep had shared the dressing room with Brad Hogg for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the previous edition of the IPL.

He surely had a lot to learn from the experience of Hogg. The young bowler must have picked up his brains during the previous season and improved a great deal. Recently, Hogg spoke at length about the role of spinners in the modern day cricket and had some words to share about Kuldeep too. He remarked the KKR youngsters as a very different bowler. Hogg believes that the variations make him a special player.

“He is a different bowler for sure. There aren’t too many chinaman bowlers in world cricket at the moment. Kuldeep has great variety and strength of any spinner is his variations. You may know all the tricks in the trade but no point using the tricks if you haven’t yet mastered a stock delivery,” quoted Brad Hogg.

Talking about the spinners, he noted that the leg-spinners usually bowl slower through the air in the longer formats of the game. However, in the shortest format, they need to bowl quicker through the air to get maximum benefits from the track.

“If you are playing 50-over cricket, a leg-spinner can be a bit more slower and use his leg-break. In Test cricket, it’s entirely different where you have to be very patient. Coming to T20, one needs to be a bit quicker through the air,” he remarked.

He cited the example of Samuel Badree as a very different kind of a bowler. He pointed out that the balls Badree bowls often skids on to the batsman and hence gives very little time to play the shots. Badree is undoubtedly very useful in T20 cricket because of this reason.

“Someone like Badree skids deliveries into pads a little bit more so that batsmen don’t free their arms. In T20 cricket, one needs to be a little bit quicker so that the batsmen don’t come out of their crease,” quipped Brad Hogg.

Elaborating his notion on spin bowling, he remarked that bowling length deliveries is not a good idea. Also, if a bowler can bowl dot balls on a consistent basis, they can prove to be crucial assets for the team. He further added that the captains usually know that they have to bowl their leg-spinners in the game. However, what matters is the timing when they are being used in the game.

“You can’t bowl good length in T20s as batsman would hit you out of the park. T20 is more about regularly building pressure and not allowing batsmen to score. Try and build on the dots. Limit the ones and engage one batsman who’s going after you,” Hogg quoted.

“Leg-spinners can be operational in Powerplays and some have been used in the middle period when the ball gets scuffed. It’s about utilising at right times. All captains have used leg-spinners wisely. That’s the biggest factor. When exactly are you using them,” he added further.