Chennai rolls out red-carpet to have left-arm wr-spinners Kuldeep and Noor pit their wits | Ipl News

Chepauk will host a mid-summer jugalbandi (or Kacheri since it’s Chennai) of chinaman bowlers when CSK go up against Delhi Capitals on Saturday.When it comes to left-arm wr-spin, Noor Ahmad and Kuldeep Yadav stand poles apart. If the Afghan is known for his quickness through the air and the flat trajectory which make it harder for batsmen to get under the ball, the Indian, is more in the classical fold – slower through the air and offers different trajectories and lures batsmen with his drift and dip.
In a league where off-spinners are deemed redundant, the two left-arm wr spinners whose stock delivery is the one that comes back into the right-handers, are turning out to be a thriving force.
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Their styles may be contrasting, but at Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals, their role is similar – to go in search of wickets and be the X-factors not only in the middle overs but also at the death as and when necessary.
In Matheesha Pathirana and Mitchell Starc, both Chennai and Delhi have two strike weapons in the pace department, who can win games on their own with their pin-point thunderbolt yorkers. But they come with asterisks attached to them thanks to the narrow margin of error. So with steady finger-spinners their side, Noor has Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin, while Kuldeep with Axar Patel around, happen to be the trump cards who they can unleash without having to worry about match-ups as against the left-handed batsmen, the one that goes away from them always gives them an added edge.
However, it is their match-up against the right-handers that always throws up fascinating contests thanks to the variations they have up their sleeve. Both, apart from their stock delivery that spins sharply back into the batsmen, have a well disguised googly that is hard to pick. If that isn’t enough, they also have the flipper – the one that pitches and hurries on straight, giving batsmen very little time to read it and defy it. It is what made Kuldeep so effective from the time he burst onto the scene and more specifically from the time he altered his run-up angle and made it straighter than it was. It means against both the left handers and right-handers he hasn’t had to struggle in terms of adjusting to the line. If he averages 20.98 against righties, it is 21.60 against the southpaws.
It is a testimony to Kuldeep’s experience and skill set with which he has been able to stay effective in bowling to both. In the two matches he has played, he has come on to bowl when the opposition was in command with small boundaries to take care of at Vizag. First up against Lucknow Super Giants, it was his spell of 4-0-20-2 which included the wickets of Rishabh Pant and Ayush Badoni that denied them a total that would have put the chase to sleep. Then against a rampaging Sunrisers Hyderabad, after accounting for Abhinav Manohar and Pat Cummins, it was Kuldeep who stopped a red-hot Aniket Verma.Story continues below this ad
Surfeit of chinamen
What has stood out in both these outings is the length that Kuldeep has mostly operated on. While trying to give flight, he has ensured it doesn’t land full in the hitting arc, with his deliveries mostly being in that region where he keeps the batsmen guessing. It isn’t an easy job for unlike the time he came in, when Chinaman variety were a novelty, now there are five wr-spinners in the IPL. Other than these two, there is Vignesh Puthur with Mumbai Indians and then Kumar Karthikeya (Rajasthan Royals) and Ajay Mandal (Delhi Capitals).
“I have been playing for nine years and there are so many Chinamans over the years. And obviously, especially in this format, you see a lot of chinaman spinners in other teams as well. So, it has become a trend now, playing with a left-hand wr spinner. You have to stay relevant in every game. I keep working on reading the batters, what they are doing, especially on game day. And that’s what I am doing. I am just trying to read the batter, what they are doing and sticking with my strength and yeah, simple as that. Keeping things very simple,” Kuldeep said.
If Kuldeep has managed to strike the consency, with Noor who is just 20, it is all about evolution. When he began in 2022, he was averaging a whopping 46.8 against right-handers. And since then, with each year it has been coming down gradually. 35.1 in 2023, 22.7 in 2024 and 12.66 in 2024. But overall, against right-handers he has shown a tendency to struggle with his average reading 25.62, whereas against the left-handers it reads an astonishing 15.70. But so far this IPL, 7 of his 9 wickets have been right-handers, whom he has been able to succeed mixing his variations smartly. With an even sharper googly than Kuldeep, he hasn’t overused it, instead, preferring to deploy it as the sucker-punch.
It is something Kuldeep reckoned made him successful, particularly in conditions like the MA Chidambaram Stadium. “I was sitting with him, and we had a chat about how to go about the wr-spin. Obviously, he has a lovely wrong’un and with that kind of pace, it’s very difficult for a batter to pick and especially when you play in Chennai, it’s always very difficult to score against any wr-spinner. I believe wr-spin, whether you bowl right or left arm is the same,” Kuldeep said.Story continues below this ad
As if to give them an ideal stage when they come face-to-face, Chepauk has rolled out a red-soil pitch, one that is expected to offer turn and bounce.