Kuldeep emerges strike spinner in the middle overs
For his winning smile, petite body structure, young age and rosy cheeks, Kuldeep Yadav is quite a combative person.
He throws the temperament of a quick at you, albeit with disarming simplicity. Not surprising, as he initially aspired to be and wanted to train for pace bowling but was luckily spotted by his Kanpur coach as a better physique for spin, an art he has since perfected.
He does not take things lying down, is fearless in challenging even the stalwarts of the bat from any part of the world in any ground of the world with his flighted deliveries. Ask him why he has not been very successful in taking wickets recently and he is instantly up in vocal disagreement.
"It's not as if I have not been performing. As a bowler my job is not just to take wickets. Often I am given the responsibility of containing the opponent and I have been doing that just fine," he said at the Old Trafford after the eventful match against Pakistan where his contribution broke the partnership that was beginning to worry India.
Old Trafford was also the ground where this son of a brick kiln owner from Kanpur bowled a beauty to get Babar Azam out at a crucial time.
The ball to Azam turned in the air, first to deceive the batter to commit on his leg before mischievously drifting out and then stealthily but smoothly gliding into the stumps from a narrow gap between the bat and the pad.
Some decades back, the ground had hosted a then young Shane Warne's ball of the century as it is called, bowled as it was to an experienced Mike Gatting.
Yadav's astonishing delivery was equally befuddling if not as celebrated, yet. By all counts, it was the ball of the tournament.
"Getting Azam out was the best delivery for me in this tournament. I got him out in the Asia Cup as well. In the rain break, I went back and watched that delivery. It had drift and turn, so any spinner will love that delivery. It's a proper dream delivery and a proper Test delivery. Deceiving the batsman in the air and making him commit the mistake. A perfect delivery," he said in hindsight.
The smile was all there despite the fact that his place in the team mostly comes after many huddles, ifs and buts. At Old Trafford too, with overcast conditions, if was being widely perceived that Yadav would be replaced by pacer Mohammad Sami but he retained his place on his skipper's confidence which he buttressed with his twin breakouts.
After getting Azam, he struck again in his next over to send the left-handed Fakhar packing after he dared to play Yadav against the spin, only to be caught at short fine leg. Zaman too was foxed, at 62, breaking whatever effort Pakistan could have made to stand up to India's 336, or later as it turned out, 302 in 40 overs.
In the end, Yadav sported a handsome 2-32 figure with his left-arm wrist spinning a win for his team even as a more lionised Chahal struggled unusually at the other end.
"Both Azam and Zaman play spin well. They were rotating the strike and were attacking, so it was important to break that partnership. Getting Babar out and then another wicket put them under pressure and according to DLS they needed a very high run-rate and that was a plus point for us," he points out to bring in the relevance of his achievement into context.
His place in the Indian squad for the World Cup was mired in scepticism but he has done enough to cement his position in the squad for some time to come.
For a disastrous IPL season which finished for him with giving away a 27-run last over last season, many questioned his place in the World Cup but the small town spinner has held his own with 1-46 against South Africa and a breakthrough performance against Pakistan.
"Everyone is talking about my rhythm. I don't think I lost my rhythm. It happens when you don't pick wickets but the last three games I have bowled really well. In the game against Australia, they were struggling to hit me and that's important for any spinner," he said.
Yadav is one of the few spinners to have a five wicket haul in all formats of the game, a talent under Kohli's eye. Even vice-captain Rohit Sharma is all praise for Yadav's efforts and said the team always gets around him to keep his confidence up.
"He's our match-winning bowler in the middle overs and today you saw how important those crucial wickets were. Both the batsmen were set. Of course, he didn't start the tournament the way he would like to, but for us as a group around him, our job is to just make sure that he gets that confidence, he gets that backing from the team," Sharma added.
Yadav has claimed 90 wickets from 47 ODI matches since his debut in 2017. That's no mean achievement. Just the beginning for this containment bowling wicket-taker with a big heart and big self-confidence as he understands the game quite well.