India vs England 3rd ODI Live: Kuldeep Yadav will once again be important in India’s plans. (Source: Reuters)
Former England skipper Alec Stewart believes that left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav will find Test cricket as a completely different challenge when compared to ODI cricket. According to Stewart, Kuldeep had tormented the England batsmen in the shorter versions of the game but if he does find a place ahead of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja then he will not have the luxury of an attacking field setting in ODI cricket and hence will under pressure.
“I am a massive fan of Ashwin and he is an impressive performer. Jadeja has had some good success against England as well. But if someone has got mystery, you might want to play him,” Stewart told PTI in an interview.
“Virat, as a captain, is very positive and will back an attacking bowler. He will possibly believe that Kuldeep has more to offer than Ashwin or Jadeja, and then that’s the route Virat will take. And then the wrist spinner has to perform, and replicate with the red ball what he has done with the white ball. We won’t know until he is given a go,” Stewart added.
Explaining the reason behind his argument, Stewart went on to say, “A mystery spinner creates doubts if you haven’t faced much of him, and it makes for great cricket when the batsmen are trying to figure out from 18-22 yards, which way it will go. But England, especially Joe Root, started to work out Kuldeep since Lord’s and the question is how Kuldeep is going to bowl in Test cricket.”
Stating the difficulties that Kuldeep might face in Test cricket, Stewart explained, “All of a sudden, he won’t have four men at the boundary. He will have four men around the bat, and the batsmen don’t have to try and score with a positive intent. Can he bowl enough good balls and ask questions of the batsmen as he had done in white-ball cricket?
“In ODIs and T20Is, you can get away with bad balls with batsmen getting caught off full tosses (Eoin Morgan) or sweep slogging caught at deep midwicket (Jason Roy). Would Kuldeep have those fields in a Test? Would batsmen play those types of shots? No, instead, it will be a game of cat and mouse and it remains to be seen if Kuldeep can make those adjustments for Test cricket in England,” Stewart concluded.
Meanwhile, the former England wicketkeeper was also instrumental in getting Virat Kohli sign for a maiden county stint for Surrey. While that was Kohli’s stint was cancelled due to a neck injury, Stewart says that how much has the rest helped the Indian captain will only be discovered after the end of the Test series.
“Virat has played only a limited number of (Test) matches in England and his record is nowhere near the high quality he has achieved everywhere else around the world. So only he can answer (if rest helped him more) and we will know at the end of this series,” Stewart told PTI when asked if skipping county stint would help him during Tests or not.