How did Kuldeep Yadav become even more dangerous?Image Credit source: PTI
Team India won 2-1 in the ODI series against South Africa and the biggest star of this victory was former captain Virat Kohli. Virat scored more than 50 in all three matches of the series and scored the highest of 302 runs. That’s why he got the Player of the Match award. Even in the last match, Kohli scored an unbeaten half-century. But apart from Kohli, Kuldeep Yadav also played a big role in this success, who took the maximum of 9 wickets in both the teams and in both the two matches which Team India won, one spell of Kuldeep turned the tables and the new rule of ICC helped a lot in this, which increased the strength of Indian spinners.
In the last match of the series in Visakhapatnam team india Won by 9 wickets. The Indian team, bowling first, restricted South Africa to a score of 270 runs. Then with the help of Yashasvi Jaiswal’s century and Virat Kohli-Rohit Sharma’s half-centuries, Team India won easily. But while these three batsmen got all the applause, a spell by Kuldeep prevented South Africa from reaching a big score. Kuldeep took 4 wickets for just 41 runs in this match.
ICC changed the rules regarding balls
Incidentally, Kuldeep Yadav was the most successful bowler in both the victories of Team India. Now, due to his wrist spin, Kuldeep Yadav has already been very successful in all three formats. But his success in this series, especially in the last ODI match, reflected the impact of a major change in the ICC rules, which increased Kuldeep’s strength. This is the rule for using new balls in ODI format. In fact, for more than 10 years, the new ball has been used by both sides in an innings in ODI cricket. Due to this, it became easier for the batsmen to score runs than before. But due to this the bowlers were facing problems and big scores were being made continuously.
In view of the increasing imbalance between ball and bat in the ODI format, there was a demand for change. This is where ICC made a major change in the rules this year. Now, during an innings of an ODI match, both sides bowl with the new ball, but this continues only till the 34th over. After this the fielding team will choose one of the two balls and then the remaining 16 overs will be completed with that ball. This one rule has provided some help to the bowlers because by using the same ball, the ball becomes old and soft and in such a situation it is not easy for the batsmen to make big hits.
Its effect shown in Visakhapatnam
This is proving to be even more important for wrist spinners like Kuldeep Yadav because it always proves difficult for wrist spinners to grip the ball and then get the right line-length. But when the ball becomes old, the game changes for the bowlers. An example of this was also seen in the match played in Visakhapatnam. Actually, Kuldeep’s magic was seen in the 39th over, when he took the wickets of Dewald Brevis and Marco Janson in just 3 balls. After this, Kuldeep took a total of 4 wickets in the 43rd and 45th overs, taking 1 wicket each.
It would not be wrong to say that a decision of ICC has increased the power of spinners like Kuldeep Yadav even more than before. Even under normal circumstances, Kuldeep is an amazing bowler but this change in the rule of the new ball has made him more dangerous than before. This is the reason why now he is seen bowling continuously even in the last 10 overs of the innings and is proving to be a big problem for the batsmen without leaving his impact.