Every wicket was a cathartic release for him; the wait that was gnawing at him; his eagerness to bowl, pick wickets, and define games; his alacrity to ensure his tickets to South Africa. He is arguably the finest contemporary spinner in the world, yet in a cruel irony, he has to prove himself every time he turns up for his country.

It’s a reflection of the times. The stocks of a high-class spinner plummets if his batting prowess is modest. A batting collapse, his head rolls off the chopping blocks to accommodate that spinner who chimes in with the bat the next game; to add an extra seamer or batsman, he is again the sacrificial goat. He is his country’s ninth highest wicket-taker, but two horrible games against New Zealand were all it took for him to be thrust to periphery.

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But in Greenfield he reasserted the worth of a high-class wrist spinner. He is a rare one, not just because he bowls left-arm wrist spin, but because he has wizardry of the wristies and the control of the finger spinners. The control he brings is different from a finger spinner, but one he acquires through his pure deception. He doesn’t keep the batsmen quiet by landing the ball on same zone repeatedly, as is the golden virtue in this format; he revels in the opposite, of mixing his lengths, speeds, trajectories, angles, drift, drop and turn, a master of disguises.

#WestIndies walked into the web. 🕸️ #KuldeepYadav‘s 4-fer has put #TeamIndia on top! 🔥#INDvWI 1st ODI 👉 LIVE NOW 👉 https://t.co/zk2ABY21JG pic.twitter.com/li2CIy4usI

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) September 27, 2026

The wicket of John Campbell was instructive. Campbell is a competent and compulsive sweeper. Anything that could be swept, he sweeps disdainfully, both aerially and along the ground. Kuldeep’s response was to keep sweet out his equation with wide, short of good length balls. He was laying the charm offensive. Conveying an impression that he would offer him the length or line to sweep, he tossed one up invitingly. Campbell failed to decipher the ruse; he swept fatally. He was too committed into the stroke that, he could not adjust to the sudden drop, the extra bounce from his over-spun ball. A horrible miscue was the only outcome.

A partnership that seemed to march on endlessly ended with a piece of entrapment that was more about his subtlety than the spectacular. When he first burst through, Kuldeep was all about magic balls and mystique. Theatrical turn, dazzling bounce, snaky drift, jaw-dropping drop, he was made for reels. But as his career unfolded, more gifts unfolded. The heart for fight, the grit for retooling, and the wits to evolve. He is more self-contained, and hence more dangerous. Spinner, historically, ripen with age, and 30-35 period is often when they hit their peak, discover the balance between offensive and defensive bowling, when they resist the experimental urges of youth but are not yet ravaged by aching shoulders.

The team management wouldn’t budge on Bumrah, despite his non-utility with the bat; they shouldn’t on Kuldeep either. Like the fast-bowling totem, he can define the game with a spell. If he pulled the game away from the visitors with his thrift in the first burst with a spell of 6-0-26-1, when West Indies were strolling at six runs an over, in the second, he went for the jugular. His figures read 3-1-10-3. The single reason West Indies did not cross 300 after scoring 174 in 30 overs.

Kuldeep Yadav of India celebrates the wicket of Justin Greaves of West Indies during the 1st ODI match between India and West Indies at the Sports Hub International Cricket Stadium, Thiruvananthapuram India on September 27, 2026. (CREIMAS)

He sucker-punched West Indies with centurion Justin Greaves’ wicket, after he had ejected Shai Hope. He lured him into a wild slog by pushing his length, bowling his wrong’un slightly fuller. The pace of the ball deceived him; the ball didn’t bounce as much as he had judged and crashed onto the pad. Though the umpire refused his imploring, the decision was overturned on review. A noticeable pattern in recent times in his inclination to keep the ball within the stumps, thus enhancing the deceptiveness of his googly.

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A wicket of the next ball — Keacy Carty caught at slip off a fullish googly — shoved West Indies into a familiar implosion. A fifth scalp eluded him, but his numbers shone as brightly as the skin-peeling sun over the arena. Kuldeep is not a bowler who could be appreciated through numbers. But some numbers, in the context of the game, are revealing. More than half of his deliveries were dots (34). He conceded only four runs an over, two boundaries and a six; the next thriftiest was Ravindra Jadeja’s 5.4. He wore many guises, the strangler, enforcer and aggressor. And furnished a memo of his immense value that shouldn’t lose its shine in the search for batting utility.