Leeds Test preview: With Kuldeep Yadav toiling hard in the nets, and dry conditions expected, will India be tempted to take a punt?

Indian Express

6 hours ago

At the less-crowded of the two nets at Headingley, three Indian players, not sure of their spot in the playing XI for the first Test of the series, trained hard, giving it their all.
Opener Abhimanyu Easwaran faced the left-armers – wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav and pacer Arshdeep Singh. Their intense battle, interspersed with constant banter and point-making, was watched by batting coach Sitanshu Kotak. This group was far away from the other busier net, where B Sai Sudharsan and Karun Nair – more likely to play in the series opener that starts on Friday – were batting under coach Gautam Gambhir's watch.
And while the training session wheels moved with their usual monotonous rhythm, the sun was out in full glory, giving the Indians a 'home away from home' feel and also some unwanted doubts and dilemmas. It's unsettling when you are at Headingley, but the place reminds you of Chepauk.
Shubman Gill, addressing his first pre-Test match conference as captain, could feel the heat despite the stadium's central cooling. 'This summer has been different from other English summers and the wickets have been pretty dry. We will have to take the call on the team combination after having one last look at the pitch,' he says.
While Shubman spoke, outside on the ground, the all-important 22-yard was getting baked, the temperature hovering in the mid-30s. If the security personnel at the gate, Lahore boy Arshad's advice of 'topi laazmi hai yahan kyon ki idhar ki garmi chubhti jyada hai (you need to wear a cap since this heat is more prickly here),' was to be believed, this was easily 40 degrees.
Sweating under the virtual 40 degree heat was Kanpur boy Kuldeep. He was in his elements, and with every dream ball he was ruining Easwaran's chances of getting into the playing XI. Just before the series, Kuldeep, in an Indian Express Idea Exchange, had been amused by a question about what the new captain Shubman needs to do in England. True to Kanpur's tradition of chikai – light-hearted leg-pulling – he said: 'Bus itna hi bolunga ki mujhko saare match khilaana. (I will tell him to play me in all the Tests),' he said. Too clever and proud a cricketer to approach the captain with this request, he was dropping hints at the nets.
After Easwaran was through with his not-too-convincing session, the captain came to take guard. The batting quality suddenly saw a spike. The drives on the off-side got crisper and the pulls more powerful. Kuldeep would go around-the-wicket to test the captain with the ball that he gets to drift outside off-stump. Shubman would lean and drive, and even if there was a wide long off and extra-cover, the ball would have bisected them.
Kuldeep wasn't giving up, he made one to turn sharply towards the slip from a rough. The captain missed and Kuldeep held his head and leaped, squealing on how he had missed the stumps by a whisker. Batting coach Kotak didn't agree; he spread his hands about a foot, indicating the distance by which he missed the clean bowled. It was Kuldeep's turn to disagree but there was consensus around the nets that it was a great ball.
Dry pitch, no nip in the air – that must be Kuldeep's idea of a cricket paradise. Leeds, at least on Thursday, had it all. Being a left-handed wrist spinner, something the world isn't used to facing, was another factor that the Kuldeep backers would be listing at the team meeting to pick the playing XI.
But what can tragically go against Kuldeep is the three batsmen he shared the nets with on this optional pre-match training day. What might see the spinner missing the cut in Leeds wouldn't be his skills but the lack of international experience of India's batting department, read Sai, Karun and Easwaran.
With a batting unit slim on experience, India is expected to go with Ravindra Jadeja, the better batsman who would be an insurance cover for that early-tour batting collapse, an old Indian tradition. Kuldeep insists these days that he has improved as a batsman but Jadeja's numbers in Tests are a cut above. So when Kuldeep had bowled for close to an hour, he didn't call it a day. Net bowlers were called, some of them were getting hydrated in the stands thinking their day was over. Kuldeep wanted to face both spinners and pacers.
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Shubman, by then, had finished nets and watched the spinner bat. After a comment on one of his lofted shots that almost took down a cameraman outside the boundary rope, he left. Coach Kotak, after a while, asked Kuldeep if he was through. No, said Kuldeep, he wanted to continue. He has too sharp a cricketing brain not to know what he needs to do to get into the playing XI abroad.
In the lead-up to this Test series, the talk has been about the new batters who have taken the place of the recently retired batting stars – Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. However, equally important is to pick the right bowling combination. Leeds presents the new captain a chance to take a punt, which can be re-labelled as an inspired selection decision in a few days. But can the Leeds weather be trusted?
There's an important cricket wisdom that's popular in these parts. They say that before making a decision in Leeds, one should first look up, then down, and up one more time – sky, pitch and sky again. On Thursday, in case one dared to stare at the clear blue bright sky with squinted eyes, there was a strong possibility that the names of Jadeja and Kuldeep would have been spotted.