Former England skipper Alec Stewart says Test series will be a different ball-game for India's Kuldeep Yadav

Sudhir Gupta 11:24 23/07/2018
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  • Stewart believes Kuldeep will have his task cut out in the Tests.

    Kuldeep Yadav’s inclusion in India’s squad for the five-Test series against England was not surprising given his displays in the limited-overs clashes between the two sides.

    The young left-arm wrist-spinner picked up a five-wicket haul in the first T20I at Manchester before following it up with a six-wicket burst in the ODI opener at Nottingham. His limited-overs displays have seen India name a three-man spin contingent in their Test squad with Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja also forming a part of the 18-man effort.

    The transition to red-ball cricket, however, will not be easy for Kuldeep according to former England skipper Alec Stewart.

    “All of a sudden, he won’t have four men at the boundary. He will have four men around the bat, and the batsmen don’t have to try and score with a positive intent. Can he bowl enough good balls and ask questions of the batsmen as he had done in white-ball cricket?” Stewart was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.

    “In ODIs and T20Is, you can get away with bad balls with batsmen getting caught off full tosses or sweep slogging caught at deep midwicket. Would Kuldeep have those fields in a Test? Would batsmen play those types of shots? No, instead, it will be a game of cat and mouse and it remains to be seen if Kuldeep can make those adjustments for Test cricket in England,” the former wicketkeeper-batsman added.

    Kuldeep has only played two Tests so far in his career.

    Kuldeep has only played two Tests so far in his career.

    Kuldeep’s impact waned down considerably as the limited-overs clashes progressed and Stewart believes that England have started getting a handle on the wrist-spinner’s mystery.

    “A mystery spinner creates doubts if you haven’t faced much of him, and it makes for great cricket when the batsmen are trying to figure out from 18-22 yards, which way it will go. But England, especially Joe Root, started to work out Kuldeep since Lord’s and the question is how Kuldeep is going to bowl in Test cricket,” Stewart remarked.

    Despite his reservations, Stewart believes India skipper Virat Kohli will be tempted to go with Kuldeep over Ashwin and Jadeja in the Tests.

    “Virat, as a captain, is very positive and will back an attacking bowler. He will possibly believe that Kuldeep has more to offer than Ashwin or Jadeja, and then that’s the route Virat will take. And then the wrist spinner has to perform, and replicate with the red ball what he has done with the white ball. We won’t know until he (Kuldeep) is given a go,” he said.

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