Top 3 Bowling Performances By Kuldeep Yadav

Kuldeep Yadav is India’s one of the best wrist spinners, especially in the shorter formats of the game, where he played a total of 35 matches and picked 59 wickets with an efficient economy of 6.74. Being a Chinamen he gets a lot of help from his unorthodox action, which makes it difficult for any batsman to pick the ball and go for a shot. After coming back from the injury, the left-arm spinner has impressed everyone, whether, it’s the limited over format or the Test format. The Kanpur-born boy has performed brilliantly for the last 2 years, which helped him to be part of the Men in Blue 15-men squad for the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024. However, the star spinner hasn't got the chance yet to be part of the playing XI in the first 4 group matches of the tournament. Meanwhile, looking at the Super 8s stage, he can get a chance to play in the playing 11 by looking at the pitch conditions of West Indies, which offers assistance to spinners.

The Chinamen has been making a return to the Indian team after an impressive performance in the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) from Delhi Capitals franchise, where he picked 16 wickets in 11 games with an efficient economy of 8.65, conceding just 372 runs 41 overs. Through this article, we are going to talk about top 3 bowling performances by Kudeep Yadav in international cricket.

Top 3 bowling performances by Kuldeep Yadav

1. 6/25 vs England, 2018

Kuldeep Yadav’s best performance came against England in the first match of 3 match ODI series, where the Chinamen, picked his career best 6 wickets at Nottingham on July 12, 2018. After winning the toss, Men in Blue elected to bowl first. However, England started well with 73 runs without a wicket in 10 overs before the Indian captain gave the bowl to Kuldeep Yadav, who broke the opening partnership between Jason Roy and Johnny Bairstow on the score of 73 runs in his first over of the spell. Later, in the second over of the spell, he picked 2 wickets of Joe Root and Johnny Bairstow on the score of 3 and 38 runs, taking them on the back foot on the score of 82 for 3. During the end of the innings, when Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler were forming a partnership, he came back to the attack and picked wickets for them on the score of 50 and 53 runs, respectively, before taking the final wicket of Adil Rashid on the score of 22 runs. 

With the help of Kuldeep Yadav’s bowling, India stopped England on the score of 268 and chased down the target easily with winning the match by 8 wickets.

2. 5/25 vs Pakistan, 2023

The second-best bowling figure for the Indian spinner came against India’s arch-rivals Pakistan in last year's Asia Cup, where he picked 5 wickets by giving just 25 runs in his 8 overs spell.  After putting up a mammoth target of 357 runs with the help of hundreds by Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, it was India’s bowler's responsibility to defend the total against a strong batting line-up of Pakistan, having in-form batters Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam and Md. Rizwan in their playing XI and the Indian bowlers didn’t disappoint their batsman as they made Pakistan all-out on the score of just 128 runs in 32 overs.

Kuldeep Yadav was the hero of India's bowling attack as he picked 5 wickets of Pakistan’s middle order batsman by giving just 25 runs in his 8-over of spell with an efficient economy of 3.

3. 4/6 vs West Indies, 2023

His third career best form came against  West Indies in July 2023, wherein in the first match of the ODI series, Kuldeep Yadav took 4 wickets by giving just 6 runs in his 3 overs of spell.

Kuldeep Yadav was in his best form in 2023 year, where he finished the year as the highest wicket-taking bowler, with 49 wickets coming in 2023.  Not only that, If we look at Kuldeep Yadav’s Performance in the ICC event, which he played last year in India he finished the tournament with 15 wickets in the 11 games he played before losing the big final against Australia. He was the key bowler for the Indian team, which led them to go undefeated till the final. 

It will be really interesting to see how the Indian captain used him in the first 2 games of the Super 8 stage match of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup against Afghanistan and Australia.