If I don't take wickets, there is no place for me in Indian team: Kuldeep focussed only on bowling

Dubai, Sep 18 (PTI) During the two months in England when he was warming the bench, the easy way would have been to blame anyone and everyone for his failure to fit into India's playing XI, but Kuldeep Yadav chose to traverse the tougher route.

While spinners who can bat are in vogue these days, Kuldeep has his priorities clear and won't deviate from his philosophy.

"If I play in any team, I will play as a (specialist) bowler. My job is to take wickets. If I don't take wickets, there will be no place for me. It is very important to understand that when you play as a proper bowler, your job is to take wickets for the team," Kuldeep said on Thursday.

Considered India's most versatile spinner of current times, the Kanpur man made it clear that he doesn't want to put all eggs in one basket by trying to transform himself into a bowling all-rounder.

He preferred to work on his skills, improve his fitness, and increase the volume of his bowling before he received his chances again. It paid dividends as the left-arm wrist spinner has got back-to-back Player of the Match award in the first two Asia Cup games including a three-wicket haul against his happy hunting team Pakistan.

Was there a clear communication from the head coach Gautam Gambhir? "No, there was clear communication. Sometimes, in 3-4 matches, I felt that I could play, but unfortunately, I couldn't play.

"Gauti bhai (Gambhir) was very straightforward. Sometimes, I felt that I could play, but as you know, because of the batting combination, I couldn't," Kuldeep said ahead of India's final group league match against Oman.

"But there was nothing about skill or batting," he added.

The two months in the UK were spent learning new skills and have a few new tricks up his sleeve.

"When you don't play, you learn a lot and you become a better player. Because you have a lot of ideas about how to react in a situation. It is very easy to blame someone. And it is very tough to accept things in your stride and strive to improve," he was being pragmatic.

The soul searching is very important, he added.

"What am I weak at? What should I work on? How should I become a better player? There are two ways. The player chooses which path he wants to travel.

"But it is very important that you keep working hard. Don't leave anything. When you don't play, you have time to work on yourself.

"And become a better player when you get a chance. But practice sessions are done to improve any skill." Kuldeep is also very critical of his own bowling, and doesn't feel he is still performing at his full potential, even though his T20I record is impressive.

"I don't think I am bowling that well. But I think I can improve and become better. Sometimes, you make a mistake in reading the batsman in this format. When you are at the top of a team and make small mistakes, you don't notice it.

"But you feel that you have made a mistake. I still have to work on that. I think I need to work more in bowling because there are more formats." Looking at how the team management thinks, is he working a bit more on his batting, and his answer is refreshingly surprising.

"I am not worried about batting. Whenever we get an opportunity to bat during the next session, I generally bat. It is very important to bat in the game. That is the most important thing for any batter who wants to improve his batting." "But obviously, I have been working a lot on my batting." Watching Barcelona's games teaches Kuldeep what? ================================ One of the biggest football freaks in the Indian cricket team, Kuldeep's Barcelona fandom is well documented. Now he has a YouTube channel of his own where he analyses Champions League, EPL, and La Liga games when he gets time and also does commentary.

He believes that watching world famous players warming the bench in top tier football games help lessen his own disappointment that comes with exclusion.

"If you follow other sports, you get to know how it feels when a team is performing really well. You see the bench strength of their (Barcelona) team. They have some unbelievable bench strength and some of them, they are not getting enough game time -- like 20 minutes, 15 minutes, but they are such good players." "They can start in any game. You see other teams and you see how they play, the big teams especially, and when they play against a small team, how they react, the communication, the final decision making is so quick." PTI KHS KHS AH AH