Promised coach Kumble that I would pick a five-fer on debut, reveals Kuldeep Yadav
Kuldeep has revealed that he promised coach Kumble that he would take five wickets on debut
|BCCI
Kuldeep Yadav, who made his Test debut against Australia in Dharamsala in 2017, revealed how heād promised the then-coach Anil Kumble that he would take a five-wicket haul on debut. Kuldeep fell short of his promise by a tiny margin, but eventually ended up taking a four-fer to rock the Aussies.
When Kuldeep Yadav made his Test debut for India back in 2017, there was considerable hype around the youngster, given he, by then, had already made inroads in both the IPL and the domestic circuit. Thus with the series on the line and team India without the services of skipper Virat Kohli, coach Anil Kumble decided to take a punt and hand Kuldeep a debut on a turning Dharamsala wicket, playing him as the third spinner in the team alongside Ashwin and Jadeja.
Speaking to Cricbuzz, the left-arm wrist-spinner revealed that a day before the game, coach Kumble had asked Kuldeep to pick a five-wicket haul in the game, to which the spinner replied and promised that he would do so. Eventually, he ended up picking four wickets in the first innings but that was enough as India ended up winning the game by 8 wickets to seal a series win.
"Anil sir said to me, you will play tomorrow and you have to take 5 wickets. So, for a minute I just froze. Then I said, yes sir, I will take 5 wickets,ā Kuldeep told Cricbuzz.
āDuring lunch, while eating, I kept thinking how will I get David Warner out. Then I planned for it: that I will first bowl 3-4 normal flights. He will come forward to play them. Then I will bowl a flipper and maybe he will shift to the back foot and be caught behind or bowled. That's exactly what happened."
While 2019 was a year to forget for Kuldeep, he still provided the Indian fans with a moment of magic in the World Cup, where he bamboozled Pakistanās Babar Azam with an outrageous delivery. Kuldeep expressed his disbelief about the delivery and stated that he was still not sure how he managed to do what he did.
"That was something different. A spinner's ball drifted that way and went through. then it hit. And turned to come inside. Sometimes you wonder how you did that. That too a white ball, not a red one. A white ball doesn't even turn much," Kuldeep said about the delivery to Azam.Ā
