A new savior: Tracking the foundations of Kuldeep Yadav's batting improvement
Alarms are scary only if you are unprepared for them; otherwise, they are just uncomfortable and irritating.
This is not a famous quote (yet). It's not a morning motivation from a grumpy uncle either. It's something that the Indian team would relate to after their big series win over England, which was capped off with a remarkable Test in Ranchi on Monday.
Alarms blared loud and split ear drums after England won by 28 runs in the first Test in Hyderabad. "How can you survive without Virat Kohli? BURRRR!", "The team tactics look flat! BURRRR!", "The game against spin has fallen off big time BURRRR", "Why do you have no one to support Jasprit Bumrah? BURRRR".
India were prepared - they dug deep into the domestic reserves and banked on the years of preparations that had gone behind the scenes for Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Shubman Gill, and Akash Deep to allow a peek into a smooth transition.
But there was one alarm that didn't go off in Hyderabad: "Life without Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja". That BURRRED in Ranchi when India were reduced to 177/7 in the second innings after both of them, having made their names for standing with the 'keeper for years, failed to support Dhruv Jurel.
The era of having two brilliant all-rounders who could both take five wickets every Test and bat 100 balls each seemed closer to the end than ever before even though India still have a lot of good orthodox spinners coming up the ranks. And everyone was scared. Not uncomfortable or irritated - but downright frightened.
Stepped up, Kuldeep Yadav. The left-arm wrist spinner, more than half of whose innings so far had been single-digit scores, batted for 131 balls. At the time he got out, with a score of 28, it was the most deliveries faced by anyone in the innings.
Eventually, It was bettered by only Jurel (149). Their partnership took India to 253-8, which Jurel pushed past 300 later, only 46 short of England's first-innings score.
Jurel, on his debut on a much flatter wicket in Rajkot, looked troubled in farming the strike with the tail. But in Kuldeep, he seemed to have found a proper batter, someone he could trust to hold his own against all bowlers. Kuldeep's certitude was surprising for a myriad of people, but not his childhood coach, Kapil Pandey.
"He was the highest run-scorer in the 2015-16 Ranji Trophy," Pandey recalled in a chat with Sportskeeda. "But there's a difference between Ranji Trophy matches and international matches... Kuldeep's game is about staying on the crease, spending time and then making runs. That's what becomes an issue sometimes but he is a good batsman. You would have seen him make 40 runs against Bangladesh as well (in 2021). He has batted well in other games too."
That 40 against Bangladesh came on a better track than Ranchi too. And it was nothing compared to facing an attack that pushed India more than most at home.
In the three Tests he featured in, Kuldeep's batting control percentage (calculated by how many balls you don't edge or miss) was 83.3 percent, according to cricket.com. This is better than almost the entire English lineup and a few Indians for the series. This was not a fluke and was anything but a purple patch of luck.
60% of Kuldeep Yadav's practice goes to bowling and 40% goes to batting: Kapil Pandey
Kuldeep's father, Ram Singh Yadav, brought him to Pandey when he was 12. Within a year, Pandey helped him transition from a wannabe left-arm fast-bowler to one of the best young wrist-spin talents in the country.
When the Kanpur-born spinner went through his leanest phase in 2021-22, it was a return to Pandey's coaching and a tweak of bowling technique that helped Kuldeep come back stronger than ever to the national side.
Both are often in touch regarding Kuldeep's form and tours. And whenever he's back in town, they arrange practice sessions where when Kuldeep asks him for the itinerary, Pandey tells him, "Pehle tum batting karlo, fir hum bowling karayenge" (First, you do some batting practice, then I'll make you do some bowling).
"I make him practise batting for at least 30 minutes, not less than that," he said. "I'll throw him the ball, make him drive, play the big shots on spin. But after that, our maximum focus remains on bowling. We keep an average of 40-60. 60 percent goes to bowling and 40 percent to batting. It has been like that since the start."
The practice didn't yield the results that Kuldeep and Pandey wanted in the nascent years of his career and it needed a shift in mindset to correct it.
"I told him to enjoy batting and do it with determination and try and play like a [proper] batsman whenever he bats," Pandey said. "I always ask him to focus on taking singles. That doesn't allow pressure to be built. Now, he has also started to get those big hits away. You must have seen him hit that big shot in front of the wicket in the last Test and score boundaries. I have told him to play his normal game, don't take the pressure that, 'I have to stay on the crease."
The coach added that Kuldeep's batting is 'fine' for ODIs and Tests, although it's not at the level of Jadeja and Ashwin yet. He added that his pupil is now also working on perfecting big shots so he could play match-winning cameos even when he gets one or two balls to face in T20 games.
Surely, it's something India could get more of from other tailenders throughout the spectrum. Can any bowler be good at batting with practice?
"All you need to do is stay serious and keep improving your skill. Whenever you get time, you need to give it to batting," Pandey said, while offering a cajole that the primary skill shouldn't be compromised.
The years of hard work that went behind the scenes, without much credit, played a big role in winning Ranchi for India. Without it, perhaps, the narratives about India's dominance at home and Bazball would have been much different.
The fifth Test of the series is a dead rubber for most but not for Ashwin and Kuldeep. It's the former's 100th Test and the venue is Dharamshala too - where the latter began his Test career with a five-wicket haul against Australia in 2017.
Ashwin, 37, has played 50 Tests since that match while Kuldeep, 29, has featured in just 10. But the youngster has shown signs that he's ready to take the baton. Even if it'd be uncomfortable seeing Ashwin retire someday, it might not be scary.