Match Analysis: Kuldeep Yadav's Web of Mastery and SKY's Brilliance Lead India to a Victory Over the West Indies

There are times that define a team’s toughness and resilience in the ever-changing world of cricket, where successes and failures overlap. When confronted with the weight of two straight losses, concerns and doubts surfaced, but the Indian team emerged out of their shadows and in a display of sheer dominance, emerged victorious over the West Indies. The Indian team came onto the pitch with fresh zeal, with their hearts focused on redemption and to provide a spirited comeback.

There were a few standout performances from both the teams, be it Rovman Powell’s quick fiery knock or Tilak Varma’s wonderfully paced innings. But the spell that Kuldeep Yadav produced, and the Whirlwind knock of Surya Kumar Yadav were instrumental in India comfortably chasing down the total of 160, which was tough given the circumstance of the pitch.

So, in this article, we will be going through the pitch map of Kuldeep Yadav and the wagon wheel data of Suryakumar Yadav to delve into a more comprehensive analysis of their performances.

To give a short description on the pitch map, the red dots denote the wickets, the blue dots denote runs between the wickets, the purple dots denote the dots, and the green dots denote the boundaries conceded.

Kuldeep Yadav’s Mastery

Also read: Match Analysis: West Indies’ narrow win against India in the 2nd T20I – Cricket Winner

The return of Kuldeep Yadav bolstered the Indian bowling attack. He started of his spell by conceding 12 runs in the first over, He tried a to go slightly short against the left-handed Mayers but got punished. His impact arrived in the 2nd over when he started bowling a bit fuller and kept things tight, which ultimately led to the dismissal of Charles. He tried similar lengths against Pooran but erred in his lines, ultimately giving away 13 runs in the following over.

The larger impact came in his last over where he dismissed both Pooran and Brandon King, by smartly shortening his length against Pooran, as seen in the pitch map. He also kept mixing up his variations well, conceding a strike rate of just 87.5 against googly (8 deliveries) and accounted for 2 wickets, while he conceded a strike rate of 132 against classical leg spin (16 deliveries) and accounted for a singular wicket.

Suryakumar Yadav’s Brilliance

Requiring a significant innings to overcome his challenges, Suryakumar Yadav delivered just that against the West Indies. In his first 2 balls, he made his presence felt by whipping two deliveries for consecutive boundaries, thus making his intent clear. He had a fantastic strike rate of 243 in his first 7 deliveries and provided a much-needed momentum for India after the loss of their openers.

He took his time in the next 7 deliveries due to the spinners coming in early but once again, began his spree of boundaries after having settled in his first 15 deliveries. The best part of a Suryakumar Yadav inning is that, even if he consumes a few dot deliveries, he will immediately compensate it with a few boundaries to keep up with the run rate. This is clearly seen in his marginally high dot percentage value, but it is backed with a very low balls per boundary value.

His wagon wheel statistics are well-distributed across various regions, which clearly demonstrates his capability to play around the field. His dominant region has been the square leg region, with 28 percent of his total runs scored in that region. But his ability to play into the gaps helped him score equally across the offside with 33 percent of his runs coming between the backward point and the long off region.

On a dry and a two paced pitch, it is tricky to hit across the line, but Surya managed that with ease by dominating the leg side field. He scored close to 60 percent his runs solely in the leg side, with 46 percent of them coming just between the fine leg and square leg region.

Although there was a slight wait for Suryakumar Yadav to make his comeback, he certainly did so in a captivating fashion.