India left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav remarked that he was not at all dejected over his non-selection for the upcoming T20 World Cup, starting in Australia this month and insisted he's working on his processes on a match-by-match basis apart from a boost in confidence.
"I am not disappointed (over not getting selected) in the T20 World Cup as I am working on my process match by match. I am assessing how I can improve. My confidence improved after the IPL. I went to the West Indies and bowled well there."
"I bowled well in Zimbabwe, too, and for India A recently. I've always had confidence. Wickets or the lack of them don't reflect the confidence I have. Throughout the series, I was bowling as well as I wanted to bowl. My confidence has gone up," said Kuldeep in the post-match press conference.
Kuldeep suffered a knee injury during the second half of IPL 2021 and had to undergo surgery for the same, keeping him out of action for a long time. After he made a comeback through the ODIs against the West Indies, Kuldeep shined in IPL 2022, picking 21 wickets for Delhi Capitals, becoming the fifth leading wicket-taker in the competition.
A hand injury saw him miss the five T20Is against South Africa at home, followed by a short series against Ireland and a trip to England. Since his comeback through five T20Is against the West Indies, Kuldeep has been looking at his best. He mentioned that working hard on his rhythm and zero compromises on his ability to spin the ball post-comeback from injury is bringing him the desired results.
"I have worked on my rhythm after coming back from injury. That's the reason I could increase the pace of my deliveries. Earlier, I used to impart pace on the ball from my shoulder. But now I got the rhythm to vary the pace. I got confidence from the IPL. But my focus has always been on getting the ball to spin. I'm not compromising on the spin. I'm getting good turn and batsmen are not getting so much time to play the deliveries, so I'm working on that."
Kuldeep, who starred in India's seven-wicket ODI series decider victory in New Delhi with a brilliant 4/18, signed off by explaining the difference between him bowling in 20-over and 50-over formats. "I now know the difference between bowling ODIs and T20Is, which I realised during the IPL and in the subsequent T20 matches I played. When I was playing the first match in Zimbabwe, my pace and rhythm was as per the T20 format."
"Suddenly, I had to change as the batter has a lot of time to play a shot and won't play much of them. So I had to realise that varying my pace was very important, like oscillating between slow and fast is very important apart from the difference in flighting and batter trying to get runs against you."
"In T20s, you need to keep hitting the right lengths. It is very rare that you fly the deliveries as if a batter is under pressure, you would want to fly the ball. With IPL and so much cricket around, I try to hit the length as much as I can and at the same pace so that batter doesn't get time to play. In ODIs, it's totally different as varying pace becomes very important.