India vs England 5th Test: Life comes full circle for Kuldeep Yadav at Dharamsala

Dharamsala: Life has come full circle for Kuldeep Yadav, who returns to the venue of his debut after seven years during which he played only 10 more Tests.

The left-arm wrist spinner burst on to the scene in memorable fashion when he turned the game India's way, first by ending the David Warner-Steve Smith alliance for the second wicket at 134 and then claiming three more scalps in Australia's first innings at the HPCA Stadium in 2017.

From 144/1, Australia slipped to 300 all out and never recovered from that collapse.  

Kuldeep was an inspired addition for the deciding Test, the teams coming into the fourth match level at 1-1. A lot of credit for that should go to then coach Anil Kumble, who decided to replace injured skipper Virat Kohli with a spinner and Ishant Sharma with Bhuvneshwar Kumar from the previous Test as India played five bowlers.

The bold move had brought the desired results. While Kuldeep added no wicket in the second innings in a five-over spell, a rare bowler had been unearthed. Or so one thought.

Even though his Test appearances remained sporadic at home due to the giant presence of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, he supplanted the senior duo in white-ball cricket, forming an irresistible force with the now out-of-favour Yuzvendra Chahal.

The pair even went by the popular but gawky portmanteau "kulcha." It was good so long as it lasted but just like every product that comes with an expiry period, their magic lasted for only a couple of years. 

After a fifer in the drawn Sydney Test during India's 2018-19 tour Down Under, then coach Ravi Shastri even anointed Kuldeep as India's No. 1 spinner in overseas conditions.

It's a different matter that the team management lost complete faith in his abilities. So much so that left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem, who incidentally announced his retirement from all cricket in India on Wednesday, was picked from the stand-by against South Africa in 2019 ahead of Kuldeep, who was in the main squad.

That was the biggest blow to the spinner's confidence as his fortunes in all three formats nose-dived, and it wasn't long before he lost his place in the national squad. 

Injuries, though inevitable, are dreaded by athletes. But a knee problem that required surgery perhaps came as a blessing in disguise for the Uttar Pradesh bowler. As he rehabilitated, Kuldeep had time to reflect on his failures, reconcile with the past and recharge himself for the future. With the novelty factor gone, the left-armer had to rework on his game to recreate the wizardry. The Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid combo reintroduced him to white-ball cricket, which culminated in an excellent 50-over World Cup last year. 

But Kuldeep is too good a bowler not to be playing Tests.

India's fixation with playing an all-rounder as the fifth bowling option to provide depth in batting has often resulted in the exclusion of a better bowler, be it Ashwin in overseas Tests or Kuldeep at home, a case in point being the Hyderabad Test where Axar Patel was the preferred third spinner for his batting abilities.

An injury to Jadeja meant Kuldeep played the second Test in Visakhapatnam but when the former returned for the Rajkot game, India decided to stick with Kuldeep, sacrificing a "batter", not unlike the Kumble-Ajinkya Rahane (stand-in captain in 2017) duo had done in Kohli's absence. It's mere coincidence that Kuldeep has been the beneficiary of both moves but how well has he responded!

Kuldeep has taken 12 wickets this series in three matches, the most Tests he has played in a row. Not earth-shattering, but those wickets have been either match-turning or match-winning from seemingly hopeless situations.  

"Kuldeep in the last two years has been bowling differently," pointed out skipper Rohit on the wrist-spinner’s reemergence.

"Even in white-ball cricket, since he has come back from his knee injury, he seems to be a different bowler. There's a bit of bite and a bit of drift in his bowling, he's putting so much effort into his bowling, into his rhythm and everything. He's changed a lot of things after he's come back from his injury, which is what you see differently now in the last two-three years that he has played."

There's a thin possibility that Kuldeep may still sit out the final Test as India contemplate playing three pacers, given the biting cold conditions here, but the Chinaman bowler, all things being equal, is here to stay.

And he has added some spunk to his batting, as witnessed in the Ranchi Test where his partnership with Dhruv Jurel defined the course of the match. Perhaps the course of his career as well.