England turn to Merlyn to solve Kuldeep’s wizardry
Bowling machine can help replicate wrist spin Buttler hoping to pick up clues for next T20I
‘He’s a good bowler – wrist spinners have been a big weapon in T20’
If right-arm wrist spinners have been conspicuously absent in English cricket for the last generation or two, left-arm wrist spinners have been as rare as hen’s teeth. So Kuldeep Yadav had novelty on his side when he ran through England at Old Trafford on Tuesday in the first of three T20 internationals and, if he is carefully managed, he even could tip the five-test series in India’s favour.
None of England’s finest batsmen read Kuldeep well enough to run down the pitch and hit him straight into the stands – not Joe Root, not Jonny Bairstow, not Jos Buttler. A batsman’s brain has to be conditioned, and none of them had ever faced a top-class English left-arm wrist spinner, largely because there has only ever been one, Johnny Wardle, and his career ended in the late 1950s.
Buttler was the only one of England’s main batsmen to work out any sort of method against Kuldeep, going back to work him legside for ones and twos.
If they still cannot read him through the air, they will have to use the full depth of their crease to play him off the back foot in the next two T20 internationals at Cardiff tomorrow and Bristol on Sunday.
“It’s very rare and he’s a very good bowler,” Buttler admitted about left-arm wrist spin and Kuldeep, who took five wickets for 24. Records are seldom so relevant: the two best bowling figures ever recorded against England in T20 internationals are Kuldeep’s and, in first place, the six wickets for 25 in Bangalore last year by Yuzvendra Chahal, India’s right-arm wrist spinner in this series.
“It’s now down to the guys to gain an understanding,” Buttler said. “You see it a lot in international cricket – that guys burst on to the scene and then people get a handle on them. It’s getting used to the angle, wrist spin is usually right-arm. He’s a good bowler and, as we have seen, wrist spinners have been a big weapon in T20.”
The wonder is that in the T20 era, when there have been fortunes to be made, there have not been more like Kuldeep. Spinning the ball both ways indecipherably has to be the future in white-ball cricket if batsmen are ever to be reined in, and the left-armer who turns his stock ball into the right-hander and his stumps is liable
to take more wickets than the stock ball that turns away to miss the outside edge and stumps.
“We know we are a lot better than we showed during that little phase of the game,” Buttler said, perhaps optimistically, about England’s loss of three prime wickets in an over by Kuldeep.
The spin bowling machine, known as Merlyn, will come to England’s aid in Cardiff, “to replicate the angle,” Buttler said. “It’s a very good machine to get used to that. But it was the first time some guys have faced him and it may take one or two games, plus video to look at. “It’s about understanding that you shouldn’t get too flustered,” Buttler explained. “With spin it can all happen quickly, suddenly you have faced a few balls and aren’t off the mark, so it’s not allowing that to affect you. “You have to get used to the [bowling] action and once you have faced them a bit more it gets
easier. You have a bit more trust and might pick up a few clues.”
All true, yet England still have to find some scoring shots and boundary options to get back into this three-game series, and to compete in the subsequent three-match ODI series against India, which is an important dress rehearsal ahead of the World Cup in less than a year’s time.
There is no substitute for running down the pitch and driving back over the spinner’s head: KL Rahul in his majestic century offered copious examples, especially against Moeen Ali. But even in the T20 era, English batsmen much prefer pace on the ball and are still reluctant to leave the safety of home. There is still the sweep and slog-sweep, but they are more dangerous options against wrist spinners because they put more revolutions on the ball than orthodox spinners and make it bounce higher, so the top edge comes into play.
To clutch at straws, a lot of the England team have played in the Indian Premier League. “Moeen played with Chahal at Bangalore for example,” Buttler said. “One of the good things has been guys training with and playing against lots of players from around the world in the IPL. It helps to take away the mystery factor.” But Tom Curran was the only England player in Kuldeep’s franchise of Kolkata Knight Riders, and the young Surrey seamer manifestly did not have much chance to unlock his secrets.