Kuldeep Yadav opens up on Guwahati wicket struggles

Despite having reduced South Africa for 247/6 at the end of day 1, the visitors went on to score almost 500 runs in the first innings, thanks to Senuran Muthusamy’s ton and Marco Jansen’s 97 lower down the order. The bowlers, especially Kuldeep Yadav, who were on top of the day one, were clearly poor throughout the second.

Even Kuldeep couldn’t help but lament the fact, that how flat the surface was. He said after the second day, “Kolkata ka wicket toh alag thaa. Yeh to pura road tha (Kolkata’s wicket was different and this was a whole road). So it’s challenging and that’s why it’s called a Test wicket,” said Kuldeep, after the day’s play.

“It is not always about domination but it is also very important how you come back on a good batting surface. It was a difficult wicket for the bowlers because I didn’t feel that there was a lot of help in this wicket,” he added. As was visible, there was no turn on offer as well.

“Personally I felt yesterday first session, there was a bit of moisture in the wicket, so I got a little bit of turn there in the first session. After that it was very good to bat on,” he said. “There wasn’t any turn yesterday as well as today. Today was much better to bat on because I hardly got any turn. Even me and Jadeja we have been talking about that.”

Kuldeep was very satisfied about how India kept things tight in the first session with South Africa getting only 69 but he always knew that with wickets intact, they would have gone after the bowling.