Kuldeep Yadav took five wickets in the first T20 against England. (Source: AP)
David Willey has questioned the tactics of wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar during the first T20I between India and England at Old Trafford. The England player questioned the India bowlers of stopping midway into their bowling stride. Kuldeep did it at least twice against Jos Buttler and later in the innings, Bhuvneshwar did so on the final ball of to Willey. It led to an exchange of words between Bhuvi and Willey with the England allrounder saying he did not concur with the bowler doing it.
“I’m guessing, but I think he [Bhuvneshwar] was looking to see what I was going to do,” Willey said. “They did that a few times. The spinners did it a couple of times. I’m not sure what the rules are on that. I don’t particularly like it. I don’t think it is necessarily in the spirit of cricket. It’s not my job to comment on that too much on what they should or shouldn’t be doing. Personally, I don’t think I’d do that. I don’t think it is great.”
India’s KL Rahul weighed in on the matter and backed his teammates while admitting that it is something that would frustrate him as well. However, he believes that the T20 format is tipped firmly in batsman’s favour that anything a bowler can do to try and gain a slight advantage should be permitted and also questioned how far England’s non-strikers were backing up.
“It will frustrate me as a batsman, it did I guess frustrate the English batsmen but the margin for error for bowlers in T20 cricket is very little so whatever tactics they can come up with and whatever they try to do to upset the batsmen is only fair,” he said.
“You know you can do it as a bowler, you can run a batsman out, he was taking few strides too many and it is a long boundary and if he gets that much start he can keep rotating the strike and keep getting two runs which will frustrate the bowler in return, so it’s only fair.”
Willey shed light on his exchange with Bhuvneshwar in the final over of the England innings, but said that much was being made out of nothing. “It was something of nothing. I think with all the microphones and cameras people get a bit giddy about this sort of thing,” he said. “I don’t think they got under our skin particularly. They have a few fiery characters and that is part and parcel of cricket. It has gone on for years, mostly unnoticed because of the lack of cameras and microphones. There is more attention drawn to it now. There is far less of it now.
“I don’t mind a bit of confrontation. I have had my fair share of it in the past. If it comes my way I am quite happy to get involved. We are advised to play cricket and leave those antics to other people,” he added.