IPL 2022 | Kuldeep Yadav is bowling beautifully and growing in this environment, says Ricky Ponting

Kuldeep Yadav has reinvented himself in IPL 2022 and while watching him bowl it feels like he has got his confidence back which was missing for quite some time. In the tournament so far, Kuldeep Yadav has picked 10 wickets from the 4 matches that he has played for his new franchise the Delhi Capitals. The leg-spinner was sidelined for the last two years at KKR as they preferred others over him. However, Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting brought Kuldeep to their side as he knew the bowler had the potential to do well.

Ricky Ponting talked about his thought process behind getting the leg-spinner in the side and said, “We are unlocking little handbrakes that might be holding players back. Even Kuldeep Yadav. For someone like him to be at KKR for couple of years and not playing – I understand they have some good spinners – one of the reasons I identified him at the auction was for that reason. I thought if we could bring him into our environment and really give him lots of confidence, I thought he could be one of the finds of the tournament,” Ponting said in The Delhi Capitals podcast. "He is bowling beautifully and growing in this environment".

Ponting further added and said, “The thing with him he has been out for 3-4 years, hardly played any cricket at all. With the Indian team, he has been on the outer and with KKR, with Chakravarthy and Narine, and even Shakib [Al Hasan] it has been hard for him to get a game. I have watched him for number of years and have talked about him leading up to other actions for number of years as well but it wasn’t till this year we could get our hands on him. It’s great to hear that he feels confident and that’s our job.”