NEW DELHI: Out of the 1000s of spinners to have cracked cricket at the elite level, only a handful have attempted left-arm wristspin. That isn't a surprise because you need to be rarest of the rare to a) become a leftie and b) practise wristspin.
Kuldeep Yadav is one of them. It already makes him sui generis, the rarest of rare. One of very few. And, for a very long time, Indian cricket, while maintaining his singularity, put him on the bench. "He's a match-winner," they maintained. "But we are better off without that match-winner." Okay, they never said that last sentence but they have consistently shown a reticence to play him in the longest format.
Some of it had to do with India's already ample spin riches in the form of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, the three spinners trusted ahead of Yadav at home. Once Ashwin retired, Washington Sundar neatly stepped in to fill that void.
But that's kind of missing the point because Yadav gives this attack a point of difference. If you have the Mona Lisa in your collection, you display it in your living room, you don't put it in your basement. But different regimes have kind of held the 30-year-back.
Most recently, the current regime refused to give themselves the shortest possible route to 20 wickets throughout the England series. They played the back-up pace-bowling all-rounder, the back-up spin-bowling all-rounder and gave a cap to a bowler not part of the original set-up. All through this, Yadav sat and pondered. Sure, it's not all black and white and it's dependent on conditions but he has shown, especially of late, that he can take conditions out of the equation.
And, yet, six-and-a-half years after Ravi Shastri's proclamation, he largely exists in the shadows in the sport's longest format. His non-selection is generally justified by a list of subjective arguments while he always seems to be on trial when he's selected.
On Sunday, the wristspinner conjured his fifth five-wicket haul in Tests. In the process, the hosts edged towards a 2-0 series win against the West Indies, a month before a far stiffer exam against South Africa.
If the wicket he claimed on Saturday evening was a bait that Alick Athanaze couldn't refuse — keeping the field up and flighting it up — his almost non-stop spell on Sunday saw him go through the tricks of the left-arm wristspin trade. There was the stock delivery, the one turning into the right-hander. He occasionally slipped in the wrong'un, the one turning away from the right-hander. With the pitch still maintaining its integrity by and large, he knew he had to dig deep. So out came the one with some drift as if the ball was moved by an invisible fan before it pitched on length just outside off stump before turning back just a smidgen to beat Shai Hope's outside edge. Its intended target — the off-stump — was knocked back.
It immediately livened up the morning session, the sort of a magic ball you wouldn't mind waking up early on a weekend to witness, either in the flesh or on the TV. It's why wristspinners are an invaluable race, they make things happen even on surfaces with not a lot of life.
Minutes later, he had accounted for Tevin Imlach as well, the other overnight batter. This was his stock delivery, the one turning into the right-hander. Imlach, who was going right back to every delivery, missed it.
It was the kind of blows the hosts needed if they had designs of engineering an innings victory on this strip; more so because the two pacers, Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah, were resorting to bumpers, yorkers and slower balls at the other end.
Justin Greaves, who has equipped himself well as a batter in this series, is an adequate sweeper but it can be a fraught shot, especially against Yadav. Having sensed a pattern, he mixed and matched and a fuller delivery hit him flush on the pads. A simple leg-before the end result.
On an almost dead wicket with next to nothing in the evening session, Yadav, just like his colleagues, suffered. But his five-wicket burst in the first innings has given them a foothold in the encounter.
