Former Indian player Robin Uthappa has claimed that star spinner Kuldeep Yadav has taken things lightly after getting the purple patch in 2025. He has also said that the heavy workload has affected his trajectory and hence his form, especially in white-ball cricket.
India lost its first home ODI series to New Zealand, and several reasons were given for the defeat. Although the management has mostly been blamed for poor selection and captain Gill for making wrong strategies which backfired, the individual excellence of the players is equally responsible.
The former Indian wicketkeeper has turned his guns towards spinner Kuldeep Yadav, who has been India’s main strike bowler in the last few series but failed to perform well this time. In three matches, Kuldeep was able to take just 3 wickets at an economy of 7.28.
Robin Uthappa accused Kuldeep Yadav of taking things lightly
Former Indian wicketkeeper batsman and Kuldeep Yadav’s former KKR teammate Robin Uthappa has commented on Team India’s star left-arm spinner for his poor performance in the three-match home ODI series against New Zealand.
Uthappa told that when players go through bad phases in their career, they sometimes take things for granted. He admitted that a similar case would happen with Kuldeep Yadav also.
Robin Uthappa said in his YouTube video, “One thing that can often happen with athletes is, you’re going through a good phase, and not intentionally, but you take things for granted sometimes. And by doing that, one thing goes wrong; it’s like a little domino going wrong, and it all has a cascading effect.”
Lack of trajectory has made Kuldeep’s bowling ineffective – Robin Uthappa
He also explained how the extra workload can also affect the spinners to a great extent, and this effect is not limited to fast bowlers only as they have to work with the ball. He told that the 31-year-old Indian cricketer has been playing a lot of games for India recently.
“This could be the same thing that happened with Kuldeep three months ago. Because he started playing a lot of Test matches, maybe because his body got tired, he started bowling the ball, which is why his height stopped growing,” Uthappa said.
Kuldeep’s biggest struggle in the series has been against New Zealand batsman Daryl Mitchell, who was in dream touch in the series. Finishing with 350+ runs, he scored many of his runs against the Chinaman bowler.
Uthappa also observed that even though Kuldeep was bowling his best ball to the batsman, it proved to be ineffective due to its low trajectory. Any spinner needs a lot of bounce on the ball to take a wicket, but in Mitchell’s case, it was coming right down to the ball.
Uthappa further added, “If he doesn’t have that extra six inches of depth in that dip, it could be the difference between cheating him and beating him outside the off-stump and hitting a six down the ground. That could impact his confidence and it could impact Kuldeep working from a defensive position rather than an attacking position.”
Robin Uthappa said, “His mentality is his biggest quality.”
Uthappa believes that Kuldeep Yadav is most effective when he has an attacking mindset, as that is his biggest strength, but batsmen like Mitchell can force him to be defensive, which then throws the crafty spinner astray.
“Kuldeep is a bowler who can be pushed into that mindset where he becomes defensive. And as soon as you push him into that mindset, he takes away all the advantages he has as a bowler. According to me, his mindset is his biggest advantage,” Uthappa said.
Kuldeep Yadav’s form will be crucial for India in the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup, although they still have Varun Chakravarthy, who has played in that format, and Axar Patel, who is also a specialist mover.
Also read: Daryl Mitchell snatches the position of world number 1 batsman from Virat Kohli; Rohit Sharma slipped from Afghanistan
