Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav on Tuesday (September 15) admitted that the spin-bowling will be an advantage in the upcoming 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 since the United Arab Emirates (UAE) pitches would offer a lot of assistance to the spinners.
However, at the same time, the chinaman bowler also acknowledged that the UAE’s tailor-made pitches for the spinners will put the tweakers under pressure because expectations will be high from the team and people will want to see them doing well in the upcoming IPL 2020.
The upcoming IPL 13 will take place from September 19 to November 10 in the UAE across three venues of UAE in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah, and the leg-spinner is taking the tournament as a challenge to prove his mettle after being out of India’s playing XI in the white-ball format in the recent time.
Kuldeep told ANI, “Experience always helps, pitches in UAE would offer assistance to spinners and if you have played here before then that would be an advantage for you. I feel that the conditions will be in favor of spinners but at the same time pressure will also be there because expectations will be high and people will want to see spinners doing well so I am trying to be focused and do well.”e
On the challenges of IPL 13 being played on the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic and bio-secure environment, the spinner said: “Playing IPL on the backdrop of COVID-19 is challenging but at the same time we need to follow all the protocols given by the local government because if you ignore it then it can hamper the tournament.”
He further pointed out: “Just because of one player's mistake the whole IPL can be impacted or if any player of any franchise ends up testing positive for COVID-19, the mood of the team can be affected so it's important to follow the guidelines.”
The 25-year-old is also confident that the 2012 and 1014 IPL winners can lift the IPL title this year under the captaincy of Dinesh Karthik given the team combination the KKR has this time.
Kuldeep signed off by saying, “Our team has a good combination but at the same time, you can't really say that we are best because in IPL all teams are strong. The kind of combination we have and we also got the time of 25 days to prepare and as a result, we got a chance to gel with each other and I feel that if we play with the proper combination we can win the title.”
(With ANI Inputs)e
