Indian leg-spinner Kuldeep Yadav has been out of the sight for a while, but he has made a royal comeback in the ODI series against West Indies as he picked up a hattrick in the second ODI.
Kuldeep became the first Indian player to claim two hat-tricks in international cricket, joining an elite band that includes pace legend, Wasim Akram. He dismissed the in-form Shai Hope, Jason Holder and Alzarri Joseph in the last three deliveries of the 33rd over to achieve the historic milestone.
The experienced leg-spinner had to words to describe the feeling and said it’s been a very difficult road in the last couple of months,
“It has been a perfect day for me, taking a second hat-trick in ODIs. Still can’t find words to describe the feeling. It has been tough for me in the last 4-5 months. I have worked hard and been bowling well, it was a very satisfying performance. There was not a lot of turn on offer but we had 380 runs and we knew they would come hard. I was just varying my pace,” he said in the post-match press conference.
In the 33rd over, Kuldeep achieved the feat in his eighth over with skipper Virat Kohli starting the proceedings with a stunning catch at deep mid-wicket, which sent Hope back to the dressing room. Holder was next in line as he was deceived in flight and Rishabh Pant whipped off the bails in time. Alzarri then failed to pick up a wrong’un and was caught by Kedar Jadhav and the excited Kuldeep jumped in joy after claiming the hattrick.
“I was a bit confused as to which one to bowl; whether to bowl the chinaman or wrong ‘un, I went for the wrong ‘un and put an extra fielder at slip (on the hat-trick ball),” he concluded.
Kuldeep finished with bowling figures of 3/52 in 10 overs and it helped the hosts to bowl out West Indies for only 280 runs, resulting in a 107-run victory to level the series.
The series decider between the two sides will be played on December 22 at the Barbati Stadium, Cuttack.
