For a fast bowler, confidence has always been the key to good bowling. If it feels right, then you can bowl exactly where you want is something every pacer will tell you. Dhawal Kulkarni is no different.
For a fast bowler, confidence has always been the key to good bowling. If it feels right, then you can bowl exactly where you want is something every pacer will tell you. Dhawal Kulkarni is no different.
The Mumbai pacer did not have a great start to the Ranji Trophy season and managed just six wickets in five innings but things changed for him yesterday.
Against Railways at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi, which is famous for helping spinners from Day One, Kulkarni picked up three crucial wickets to help dismiss the hosts for just 187. Left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla also picked up three wickets. In reply, the defending champions were 2 for 1 losing the crucial wicket of Ajinkya Rahane two balls before bad light stopped play.
Kulkarni was the leading wicket-taker in the Ranji Trophy last season and the 42 scalps were also instrumental in his selection to India's tour of New Zealand earlier this year.
"This season, I had not been picking wickets regularly though against Punjab I was bowling in good rhythm. This is my first three-wicket haul of the season and since it came on a wicket that did not help the pacers at all, it is a huge confidence-booster for me," Kulkarni said.
Kulkarni's effort will be a big help not just to his form but also for his team which has not got off to a start expected of them.
"Dhawal played a crucial role for us last year as he was not only getting wickets regularly but was also giving us the crucial breakthroughs very early in the innings.
"That was not happening this season. But he bowled well today and hopefully, he will be able to take it from here and repeat what he managed last year," said coach Praveen Amre.
