India vs Australia 2020: Narendra Hirwani feels a few tweaks would help Kuldeep Yadav to regain his white-ball form

Kuldeep Yadav had a great start to 2019 when he picked up a five-wicket haul against Australia in the fourth Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground. However, since then he had a year to forget as he had a forgetful IPL and an unimpressive 2019 World Cup with the ball.

In the first ODI against Australia at Mumbai, Kuldeep caused a few problems to Aaron Finch and David Warner in the early stages. But later, he was picked very easily and ended up wicketless. This highlighted the exact problem with Kuldeep - he was getting picked easily.

A look at the Playing XI for #INDvAUSManish Pandey and Navdeep Saini come in, in place of Pant and Shardul Thakur respectively.Rishabh Pant is undergoing his rehabilitation protocol at the National Cricket Academy. pic.twitter.com/FaT5yuMLp5

— BCCI (@BCCI) January 17, 2020

Former Indian leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani believes that while Kuldeep's bowling was not bad, he has to alter his line and length and be more attacking in order get his white-ball form back.

Also see - Live cricket score

Hirwani told The Indian Express,

“I didn’t see any glaring weakness where he has to go and work for months. There is the need to be a bit smarter with his lengths, a mindset to attack more, and a few tweaks.”

One of the many reasons why Kuldeep was effective in making the batsmen play the false stroke was due to his ability to dip the ball. This is something that Hirwani feels Kuldeep needs to work on more for his revival.

Hirwani continued,

“Kuldeep’s best bet is to concentrate on the extent of spin and dip. I am not talking like some old-timer – flight it high, but just over the eye-line. And also not every ball. Let him keep varying it but there should be enough of such balls in the spell.

“If you can keep varying your pace and trajectory, and get enough revolutions on the ball, the batsmen can have the doubt what the next ball would do. There can be a little delay in his reaction – just a little bit as these are all very good batsmen – but that slight delay can work. The batsman tries to kill the turn but if there is doubt, his movements would be a little slower and that fraction of a second is the key for a spinner.”

It remains to be seen if Kuldeep manages to be among wickets in the ongoing second ODI against Australia.