It will not be wrong to say that left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav turned the ongong Ranchi Test between India and England decisively in favour of the home team. Ravichandra Ashwin might have picked up the first three wickets to fall in second innings, but it was Kuldeep who snared crucial wickets of Zak Crawley and Jonny Bairstow who were threatening to take the game away scoring quick runs.
The man picked up four wickets in the second essay helping India skittle England for just 145 runs as he finished with figures of 4/22 in 15 overs. More than picking the wickets, the kind of turn he extracted from the pitch created doubts in minds of England batters. Former England cricketer Michael Vaughan was immensely impressed with Kuldeep as he drew parallels with legendary cricketer Shane Warne.
"The best compliment I can give @imkuldeep18.. Today he has bowled today like a left armed Shane Warne," Vaughan wrote in one of his tweets praising the India spinner. "He (Warne) absolutely would have loved how Kuldeep bowled today," Vaughan wrote in another tweet.
Meanwhile, India turned the game on its head on the third day. It was the duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Dhruv Jurel who forged a brilliant 8th wicket partnership even as the latter scored 90 runs to reduce England's first innings lead to 46 runs. The visitors were then skittled for just 145 runs as India were set a target of 192 runs. If the hosts win this Test match, this will be the first series loss for England ever since Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over the Test team. This will also be only the second time in last 10 years that India have chased more than 150 in Tests with the other instance being the historic Gabba Test in 2021.
