The lessons learnt during an unsuccessful Test against England last year were displayed in wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav’s maiden five-wicket haul during the ongoing series finale versus Australia on Saturday.

Prior to the ongoing clash at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Yadav’s last Test away from home was against the English at Lord’s in October 2018. He proved costly and went without a wicket in that fixture.

Saturday, though, yielded telling figures of six for 99 for India’s first-ever Test match left-arm wrist spinner.

‘Sometimes it’s hard you know when the batsmen are picking you. And that’s the beauty of cricket, you have to keep learning every day, and I’m still learning every day,’ said Yadav.

‘That England tour was challenging for me and when I played there in the Lord’s Test match, after that I really worked on my bowling with my coach, so you know for a spinner, any spinner, it’s very important to stick with the basics and just follow what we call the basic thing of spin bowling: little bit of flight, turn the ball.

‘More important than the perfect area is deceiving the batsman in the air. That’s the more important thing for me and I’m still working on that. I don’t believe in mystery or something like that. If you’re good enough to deceive the batsmen in the air, that’s good enough for me and I’m looking for that only.’

Selected in the absence of injured spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and fast bowler Ishant Sharma, Yadav welcomed the opportunity to impress alongside fellow slow bowler Ravindra Jadeja.

‘When you know you have Ashwin and Jadeja, the best spinners, and you are the third one, so there is a lot to motivate yourself and learn from them. They keep pushing me in the nets that you have to bowl this way in good areas,’ he added.

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