Kuldeep Yadav completed 50 Test wickets during the 5th and final Test match between India and England.
New Delhi: Kuldeep Yadav made his outing at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamshala memorable by picking up his 5oth Test wicket during Day 1 of the fifth and final match of the series, on March 7. He dismissed Jonny Bairstow, who was playing his 100th Test match to reach this milestone, and then dismissed England skipper Ben Stokes in his very next over to pick up a fifer.
The star spinner has been India’s go-to bowler as he completely decimated the English batting line-up single-handedly. He grabbed the wickets of Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Zak Crawley, Jonny Bairstow, and Ben Stokes by the second session itself. Apart from him, only Ravindra Jadeja managed to pick a wicket as he dismissed Joe Root.
Electing to bat first, Crawley and Ben Duckett had to withstand some outstanding swing bowling from a returning Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj asking tough questions constantly. The duo rode their luck as they played and missed deliveries on various occasions while dealing with variable bounce.
While Duckett struggled, Crawley was pristine in his drives whenever he wasn’t troubled by swing and even survived an lbw appeal off Siraj. Duckett brought up the half-century of the partnership, the fifth such instance for England in the series, with a pre-mediated lap-sweep against Ravichandran Ashwin in the 15th over.
Crawley and Duckett took a four each off Kuldeep, but the latter tried to smash a googly over the leg-side but got a huge leading edge and Shubman Gill ran to his right from cover to take a fabulous diving catch.
Crawley was languid in using his long levers for driving in mid-off, extra cover, and down the ground against the spinners to get his fourth fifty of the series. He would also hit the first six of the match by dancing down the pitch to smack Ashwin over long-on. But at the stroke of lunch, Pope came out of the crease for a flick against Kuldeep, but the googly skidded and went past the outside edge to give Dhruv Jurel an easy stumping from behind.
However, India completely took over in the second session by grabbing four wickets and throwing the England side on the back foot.