Kuldeep Yadav trains at the NCA
Kuldeep Yadav’s road to recovery has begun at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. The left-arm wrist spinner, who has played only seven matches – five ODIs and two T20Is – this year before being sidelined by a knee injury is putting in the hard yards to regain his full fitness and get his place back in the Indian side. Kuldeep took to Instagram to post a video on Thursday in which the wrist spinner was seen doing fitness drills.
“There’s no point in returning from the half-way mark because you will have to cover the same distance which, if moved forward, can take you to your destination,” wrote Kuldeep.
The last couple of years have been very tough for the Uttar Pradesh spinner, who was not too long ago pitted as India’s premier spinner in white-ball cricket and was knocking on the doors to cement his place in the Test side.
A drop in form since the 2019 ODI World Cup meant he spent the better part of last year warming the benches despite being a part of India’s squad in pretty much every series.
Just when the 27-year-old appeared to be getting back to his groove in the Sri Lanka series, an unfortunate knee injury ruled him out of the UAE leg of the IPL. The extent of the injury was such that Kuldeep had to miss the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 and the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He also had to undergo a surgery in September this year.
“Surgery was a success and the road to recovery has just begun. Thank you so much to everyone for your amazing support. The focus is now to complete my rehab well and be back on the pitch doing what I love as soon as possible,” Kuldeep had tweeted.
Promoted
As it turned out, the left-arm wrist spinner was not retained by the Kolkata Knight Riders, for which who has played since 2016.
The talented spinner, who is the only Indian to have two hat-tricks to his name, would be hoping to recover in time and get picked up a franchise in the mega auction ahead of IPL 2022.
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