Kuldeep completely deceived us, admits Morgan
Manchester, Jul 4 : England captain Eoin Morgan has admitted that Kuldeep Yadav has “completely deceived” his batsmen in the opening Twenty20 International here, and said the hosts need to put up a much-better show against the Indian wrist spinners in the remaining matches if they want to give the visitors a tough fight in the series.
Kuldeep finished with exceptional figures of 5 for 24 at Old Trafford last night, which restricted England to 159 for 8.
Kuldeep’s scalps include three wickets in his third over when he had Morgan (7) caught in the deep and Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root stumped by MS Dhoni for golden ducks, as England subsided from 95 for 1 just after the halfway mark to post a modest 159 for 8, which India overwhelmed with eight wickets in hand to take a 1-0 lead.
We weren’t good enough in Bengaluru (when Yuzvendra Chahal took 6-25 in February 2017). But that was a different game. It was different today. Kuldeep took three wickets in four balls and deceived us. It wasn’t a case of us chipping the ball up in the air. He completely deceived us and I thought he bowled well, acknowledged Morgan.
We didn’t get enough runs and were probably 30-40 runs short. I thought we got off to a brilliant start. Kuldeep bowled well but we know we can play him better than that. So between now and the next game, we need to assess our plans, make sure they are the right ones, and stick with them, he added.
Morgan asked England middle-order to take a leaf out of Jos Buttler’s book in how to play spinners.
You go from sitting in the dug-out to match pace, when a guy is three overs into his spell, it is going to be different. That’s the hardest part about batting — starting against a spinner so we have to face more deliveries off him. Jos was playing him (Kuldeep) better but he had probably already faced 35 balls before he came on to bowl, he said.
