'Everybody is talking about Kuldeep Yadav': Sunil Joshi reveals how he helped the spinner make India comeback

Kuldeep Yadav has scripted quite a comeback into the Indian side and looks set to be in the World Cup 2023 squad. With 22 wickets in 11 ODIs, the left-arm wrist-spinner is India’s leading wicket-taker in 2023. He also boasts an economy rate of just 4.87.

These stats are a lot different from the horror period the spinner endured in 2021. The Uttar Pradesh bowler only featured in nine ODIs for India across 2020 and 2021. In IPL 2021, he didn’t even play a single game for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and exited the tournament midway through a knee injury.

Since then it has been the story of redemption for Kuldeep who started his comeback by working under former India spinner Sunil Joshi at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).

Kuldeep’s loss of form was largely a result of the lack of pace in his bowling. With Joshi, a former BCCI chief selector, he started working on adding pace to his bowling and imparting more revolutions on the ball.

“I was part of the selection committee when Kuldeep Yadav got dropped. Who came to the rescue? None of the coaching staff, I was the one who got his delivery stride shorter, front arm better, arm speed better, got him to rip more revolutions on the ball,” Joshi told The Indian Express.

Joshi said that even former India coach Ravi Shastri was impressed with the changes Kuldeep had made in his bowling.

“Suddenly, everybody is talking about Kuldeep Yadav. Ravi Shastri asked Sunil, what have you done with Kuldeep? I said, ‘Ravi bhai I have not done anything special. These are the simple things that a bowling coach should be doing’. If you look at Kuldeep 2.0, his front arm is nice toward the target, his bowling arm is towards the target, he is running towards the target. Shorter stride, there is a free follow through, he has got quicker through the air. You look at the way he is bowling now,” added Joshi.

Kuldeep’s childhood coach Kapil Pandey in an interview with the Indian Express recalled that KKR not giving the cricketer a game in IPL 2021 hit the spinner hard.

“The dip started when he was not given a chance by KKR. But he kept working,” Pandey said.

The coach also added that Kuldeep moving to Delhi Capitals for the 2022 season of IPL also worked wonders for him as coach Ricky Ponting and Rishabh Pant showed the required confidence in the bowler to come good.

“Ricky Ponting told him ‘I am going to play you all the matches. There is a reason Warnie (Shane Warne) likes you and I can see why. You are going to be our matchwinner’,” added Pandey.

Kuldeep took 21 wickets for DC in IPL 2022 in 14 matches. He also added 10 more wickets to his tally in IPL 2023.