“I Always Wanted to Be a Fast Bowler” – Kuldeep Yadav Reveals

Indian leg-spinner Kuldeep Yadav recently revealed about his dream of becoming a fast bowler ever since he started playing cricket. However, destiny had something else in the bag for him and he turned out be a top spinner for India.

Kolkata Knight Rider’s left-arm chinaman Kuldeep Yadav has revealed that he always wanted to be a fast bowler and hated spin bowling when he was at a very young age.

The left-arm spinner was the single player in the Indian test squad who did not get a game in the recent test tour to Australia in spite of most of the senior players being injured. Washington Sundar was selected ahead of Kuldeep Yadav for the final test because of his batting skills.

He was retained by his franchise Kolkata Knight Riders before the IPL auction when most of the experts thought it was time for Kuldeep to go into the auction and play for some other franchise. Yadav was benched for the most part of last year’s IPL and played only 5 out of 14 games. It looks like that he would have to do something incredibly special next year too to cement his place in the team.

Kuldeep Yadav on How Spin Bowling Started for Him

“Fast bowling appeared easy back then. I think I was good at fast bowling. Even my coach used to feel the same because my wrist would work well. I could swing the ball both ways even at the age of 10-11 years. But the hurdle was my lack of growth. So he asked me to switch to spin bowling,” Kuldeep Yadav said.

“I was initially very displeased because I never liked spin and always wanted to be a fast bowler. I was angry, but when he told be to bowl spin, I tried and started off bowling chinaman (left-arm wrist spin) in the very first attempt,” he added.

“I was very angry and didn’t go to the ground for ten days, as I was determined to continue with fast bowling. But Sir said if I really wanted to play cricket and come to the ground, I had to take up spin bowling. So I went back to the academy after ten days,” Kuldeep Yadav further added.

When Sir asked me to bowl spin, I don’t know why, but I subconsciously decided to bowl chinaman (left-arm wrist spin). It just came out voluntarily. Even my Sir understood that it was a rare quality. So he spotted the talent and preferred working on it,” concluded the KKR spinner .