A game of moves and countermoves: Daryl Mitchell vs Kuldeep Yadav
Mitchell has repeatedly found ways to unsettle Kuldeep, using his reach, footwork and sweep to disrupt the spinner’s lengths, lines and fields. From Dharamsala to Dubai and Rajkot, a fascinating contest has emerged over who gets to dictate the terms
At the highest level, cricket is a contest over who dictates how skills are used. A bowler has the ball, the field and a plan; a batter has time to react. Yet the balance can shift with a step down the pitch, a sweep against the turn or a shot into a space the bowler thought he had covered. Like a chess match, each move invites a counter: the value of a stroke lies not only in the runs it scores, but in the options it takes away from the bowler’s arsenal.
That makes Daryl Mitchell’s contest with Kuldeep Yadav compelling. Mitchell is trying to make one of the world’s finest wrist-spinners abandon his preferred terms; Kuldeep is trying to make a batter who reads spin exceptionally well commit to a mistake. Their duel is less about one decisive blow than a series of adjustments, each forcing the other to rethink the next move.
Mitchell has been a scourge for India in ODIs. He was the only batter to score a hundred against an in-form, well-rounded Indian attack during the team’s unbeaten run to the 2023 World Cup final - and did so in both the league game and semifinal. Earlier this year, he again troubled India as New Zealand won their maiden ODI series in the country, with his efforts driving the visitors’ come-from-behind victory.
A key difference between the sides in that series was how New Zealand played spin, and Mitchell’s ability to neutralise Kuldeep in the middle overs mattered. They have faced each other nine times in ODIs, with Mitchell scoring 184 runs at a strike rate of 111 for just two dismissals. Only Shai Hope has scored more runs off Kuldeep. Just four batters have a higher strike rate, and none has faced even 60% of the volume that Mitchell has.
The numbers reflect Mitchell’s strength against spin. Since April 2023 – a period in which the New Zealander began hitting his stride in the ODI format – 62 batters have faced at least 500 balls from spinners; none averages more than Mitchell’s 88. He strikes at 96, the eighth-best rate among the 62. Among Full Member batters who strike faster, Shubman Gill comes closest to Mitchell’s average, at 59.06.
Mitchell’s method has two parts. He uses his reach and feet to hit down the ground; if he cannot get to the pitch, he sweeps spinners off a good length. He sweeps 16.7 per cent of the time – once every six balls – and comes down the wicket against spin on 6.2 per cent of deliveries. Only team-mate Tom Latham exceeds him in both measures.
Against Kuldeep, these options make the bowler second-guess his length. Since April 2023, batters have come down the track against Kuldeep on 2.6 per cent of deliveries; Mitchell does so 4.5 per cent of the time. He does it 5.5 per cent of the time in Kuldeep’s first spell and 4.2 per cent in the second, but not much in the third, often after the 40th over, when an extra fielder is available on the boundary.
Once Mitchell unsettles Kuldeep’s length, the sweep pulls him away from his attacking, stump-to-stump line. The risk is clear: on both occasions Kuldeep has dismissed Mitchell, he beat him in the flight to trap him LBW. But Mitchell sweeps Kuldeep on 25.1 per cent of the balls he faces, against an average batter’s 11.1 per cent.
His footwork numbers against Kuldeep show the calculation. He attacks 70.7 per cent of balls played off the front foot, including coming down the wicket, but only 30.3 per cent off the back foot. Meanwhile, 64.2 per cent of his back-foot shots are used to rotate strike. The false-shot percentages underline the difference: 16.8 per cent off the front foot, against just 5.3 per cent off the back.
The first illustration came in Dharamsala during the 2023 World Cup. Mitchell took on Kuldeep in his first spell, aware India had no sixth bowling option to fall back on. Using his long levers to hit down the ground, he pushed Kuldeep towards fast darts on the leg stump and wide googlies outside off stump in his second spell. To his credit, Kuldeep did induce a false shot when Mitchell reached out for a wider googly, only for the fielder at long-off to spill the chance.
Kuldeep conceded 0/48 in his first five overs, with Mitchell facing 17 of those balls. He returned for the back half of his spell bowling wider and largely keeping Mitchell off strike, taking 2/25. Mitchell had still scored 43 off 28 balls against him – almost as many runs as Kuldeep had conceded at any point in an entire innings in that World Cup until then.
Dharamsala had shown Kuldeep the difficulty of allowing Mitchell to dictate the length and pace of the contest. Their next meeting, at the 2025 Champions Trophy in Dubai, offered the spinner an opportunity to turn the tables. This time, he found conditions that allowed him to take away Mitchell's preferred method of disruption. Across two innings, Kuldeep kept him largely quiet and dismissed him once.
Mitchell had to face Kuldeep earlier in his innings in both games, before he had fully settled, making him slightly less judicious than usual. The slower surfaces also worked in Kuldeep’s favour. Mitchell’s customary ploy of using his feet early in a spell became less likely, allowing Kuldeep to stick to his lengths without offering the batter pace in the air to work with. Across 32 balls in the two games, Mitchell managed just 16 runs off Kuldeep, without a boundary. For once, the bowler had denied him both his preferred method of disruption and the scoring options that usually followed.
Dubai had offered Kuldeep a blueprint to contain Mitchell: deny him the opportunity to attack early, make the most of slower surfaces and prevent him from generating momentum with his feet. When the duel resumed in the three-match ODI series in India earlier this year, Mitchell found a way to unsettle him once more. This time, though, it wasn't just about disrupting Kuldeep's length. Mitchell began manipulating his field as well, forcing the spinner to make adjustments to his line and attacking options.
In the first ODI in Vadodara, Mitchell largely sat on Kuldeep as wickets fell around him, scoring 15 at a run a ball. The decisive exchange came in Rajkot, during a chase of 285 with the series at stake.
Kuldeep’s stock ball turns into the right-hander. He often begins with three boundary riders on the leg side and a sweeper on the offside to cover the googly, as he did against Will Young for most of the match. The mid-off fielder is usually kept inside the circle, inviting the batter to go down the wicket against the turn, should he wish to take it on. Mitchell’s reach, however, meant Kuldeep also needed protection at long-off.
Mitchell made the first move. Knowing New Zealand needed to win the middle overs, he came down the track and lofted Kuldeep for six off the second ball of his spell. Kuldeep pulled his length back as he often does when he gets hit; Mitchell moved across and paddled the next opportunity into the vacant fine-leg region for four.
In the next over, Mitchell reverse-swept a googly on the stumps to the backward-point boundary, forcing a field change. Deep square-leg came in and a sweeper moved squarer to backward point. With no deep fielder behind square on the leg side, Kuldeep’s attacking line had been taken away as he resorted to shorter lengths outside off until the end of the second Powerplay. Mitchell collected singles and twos on the offside, and when the bowler erred on the shorter side, he cut one past deep backward point, who had been moved squarer to cover the reverse sweep.
Mitchell made Kuldeep change his length, field and line. The head-to-head score read 32 balls, 50 runs, four fours and a six – the most anyone had scored off Kuldeep in an ODI, surpassing Mitchell’s own effort at Dharamsala. His unbeaten 131 took New Zealand to a seven-wicket win, with 15 balls to spare; Kuldeep recorded his third-most expensive figures.
Four days later, in the decider, Mitchell hit Kuldeep’s googly over long-off for six off the first ball of his spell. Kuldeep did not retreat into defensive lines, but stayed away from his good-length band, wary of being hit down the ground with short boundaries in play in Indore. He was removed after a first spell of just three overs and not reintroduced until the end of the 38th over. India’s most potent middle-overs weapon had been taken out of the contest. Mitchell made a career best 137 as New Zealand wrapped up the series 2-1. Since April 2023, Mitchell has scored at a strike rate of 117 against Kuldeep in the middle overs.
The next chapter will bring a different set of conditions, and perhaps a different challenge for both. The upcoming five-match ODI series will be the first time Mitchell faces Kuldeep on New Zealand soil; all their previous encounters having been in Asia. With Hardik Pandya absent, India have often played three frontline seamers in SENA conditions in the dispensation under Gautam Gambhir, leaving Kuldeep warming the bench. He has also been off the boil across formats since Mitchell’s assault in January.
If Kuldeep makes the XI, the contest resumes: can he force Mitchell into a new response, or will the batter make the spinner change his plan once more? Like chess, neither can afford to think only one move ahead.
