The world has known for a while what Kuldeep Yadav the bowler has to offer. The charming loop, the old-world speeds and the oh-my-goodness drift. So much so that he was once proclaimed as India's No. 1 Test spinner by no less than Ravi Shastri.
It hasn't quite panned out that way. Kuldeep has since been the third or even fourth in the pecking order as far as India's spin options are concerned in Test cricket.
In this series, he was only picked when Ravindra Jadeja was ruled out, but immediately left the impression that he probably should be higher in the pecking order already. For, Ben Duckett had little idea why he wasn't able to get to the pitch of the ball and why all his forward defence could eke out was an edge to silly point.
The moment was a vindication for Kuldeep, who on arrival left a bigger impression than India's three finger spinners had managed in Hyderabad.
So, when the hosts landed in Rajkot, Kuldeep was once again preferred to the all-round capabilities of Axar Patel, and he more than vindicated his selection with perhaps his best bowling spell in whites. Standing in his way was Duckett again, the overnight centurion who looked hungry for more on a flat pitch, and not standing by him was Ravichandran Ashwin, who had to rush home to attend a family emergency. But the left-arm legspinner stepped up admirably with a magical 12-over spell that not only saw the end of Duckett but also set India up for an unprecedented lead.
Hence it was a no-brainer to play him on a spicy pitch in Ranchi. Here again, Kuldeep's four wickets in the second innings was beautiful to watch and left a massive impact on the game. R Ashwin would wax eloquent on how impressed he was with the wrist-spinner's versatility.
While it was difficult to take your eyes off Kuldeep the bowler in this series, there was another facet of his game that found its grounding at the highest level.
In Ranchi, Kuldeep played out 131 balls for his 28:
Walking in as a nightwatch on the third evening in Rajkot, Kuldeep scored 27 off 91 and provided a crucial anchor in the lead-up to the high-risk partnership between Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan later in the innings. His measured innings, which exploded with the occasional big hit, including his first six in international cricket, allowed India to breathe a little easier while playing one of their least experienced sides in some time.
Kuldeep the batter was allowing India the selection flexibility and the lower-order solidity that they were scrambling for in desperate times, but how it all panned out would have left even them pleasantly surprised.
In Ranchi, he also managed to bat time when most batters found it difficult to stay put, let alone score. On a pitch where the occasional ball rolled along the ground, Kuldeep deadbatted everything England threw at him and went on to face 131 balls for his 28 runs. It was an innings that helped Dhruv Jurel do his thing at the other end and take India within 46 runs of England's first-innings total. If not for those two batters, India faced an encore of a massive fourth-innings run-chase like Hyderabad.
It's not just about the 117 minutes that Kuldeep spent at the crease but also how solid he looked. A lot of it was down to his incredible defensive game, a skill honed into him by his childhood coach Kapil Pandey.
Every time Kuldeep visits his coach, even now as an international cricketer, the first thing he's instructed to do is pad up and face throwdowns. "You need to be fresh for batting," Pandey says.
It wasn't too different his time around as well, when Kuldeep paid his coach a visit after the World Cup, but the tables seemed to have turned.
"When he came to me before this series, he told me that he wanted to work on his batting. I liked his positive approach because I honestly can't remember him saying that to me before! It did catch me off guard and I had to explain to him that bowling is your main thing (laughs)," Pandey remembers.
The work Kuldeep put in at the Kamla Club Ground might have been behind the scenes but the result is for everyone to see. He has faced a total of 592 balls in his Test career and 293 have been in this series. To put that into perspective, Jonny Bairstow has faced 241 balls in two more innings this series.
The practice routine was present in Ranchi too ahead of the Test. Kuldeep routinely practiced his defensive game, which has served him well in the past and set him up to score runs, including a first-class hundred. But on this occasion, he was trying to iron out a small flaw in his batting and a large part of it revolved around how he brought his bat forward to meet the ball.
"Ball khelne ke liye uska bat thoda andar se bahar aata thha (To meet the ball, his bat used to come at an angle to meet the ball)," Pandey says.
"I wanted him to bring his bat forward from in front of the off-stump. He tweaked his batting stance a bit so that the front elbow aligns with the front foot and the bat comes down linearly. I think that's made him more alert to the deliveries and allowed him to tackle the low-bouncing ones too. You could see that in Ranchi."
Kuldeep's coach at Delhi Capitals, Pravin Amre, remembers him routinely visualizing taking singles in the nets; that is when he is not padded up while waiting for his turn.
"He knows that when he comes out to bat in a T20 game, there will be a set cricketer at the other end with, say, 10 runs to get. So he will have discussions with me around field placings and how to take the single and get to the other end," Amre says. "For him, it's always about how to win that situation rather than being the winner himself."
This tenet of batting he borrowed from the T20 chasing manual has helped Kuldeep give a good account of himself in the series. It's not just helped him make his case on every kind of pitch anywhere in the world but also helped his team at a time when it's transitioning much before it had planned to.
With a Test match to go, there's surely more to come from Kuldeep. And Pandey isn't giving up hope on his student finally being able to raise his bat and celebrate a milestone. While speaking on phone at the end of the third day in Ranchi, he only had one request for Kuldeep. "Ek pachaas laga de bhai (My brother, please hit a fifty)."
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