Radha Yadav 2.0 - Smarter, fiercer and hungrier

Radha Yadav is currently the highest wicket-taker in the ongoing Bangladesh vs India Women’s T20I series. Still, at the beginning of 2023, it felt like the end of the left-arm spinner’s young career at the international level was near. 

She was dropped from the side after a lacklustre performance at the 2023 T20 World Cup in South Africa, where she picked up just three wickets in four games. 

If Radha had thought that the upcoming inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL) would help her get back in the side, she couldn’t have been more wrong. She picked up just four wickets in the nine matches she got to bowl. 

Radha’s fall after that was as steep as her rise in the Indian setup, where she stood out amidst spin stalwarts like Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Ekta Bisht. The WPL had thrown up newer and better spin options in Saika Ishaque and Shreyanka Patil, and the team management latched on to them like barnacles on a ship. 

But the fall is not why we are discussing Radha’s story today. It’s about how she rose again with a roar and showed everyone what she is actually made up of. This is the story of Radha Yadav 2.0. 

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It was the second game for the Delhi Capitals in WPL 2024. Marizanne Kapp has already kapp-tivated the Bengaluru crowd with her scintillating new ball bowling. UP Warriorz were three down for just 16. 

Radha came to bowl in the 10th over and was bowling to Grace Harris, who had already smacked her for a four off a short delivery outside off. Radha only bowled the next one on the off-stump line but gave it a lot of loop, and the ball was sluggish to come off the pitch. Harris had already put her dancing shoes on but could only sky the ball to Shafali Verma at third man. 

That’s when Radha came in the game, not just with a bang, but with a roar so loud that the sinews in her face popped up as she let out all of the built-up frustration from a low-key year. 

That was just the start. 

In her next over, she got a big hitter like Kiran Navgire out by titillating her with another fuller delivery. By the end of the game, she had four wickets for just 20 runs. 

When Meg Lanning was asked about her after the game, she said, “She came to today’s game with a little bit of a look in her eye about wanting to be really competitive and take the game on, and she certainly did that.”

That “little bit of a look in her eye” is where you glimpse the fire that fuels her. Safe to say, it burnt bright this WPL, as she finished the 2024 season with 10 wickets at an average of 18.7 and an economy of 7.5. 

But what changed about her bowling? How did she suddenly become a new version of her old self? The answer will also reveal what’s special about her as a left-arm spinner. 

If you look at her beehive from the 2023 WPL, you’ll find that she bowled 38.5% of her deliveries within the stumps, which was easy for the batters to hit on the batting havens of Mumbai. She wasn’t mixing her angles as well and was quite predictable as a bowler. That’s why, on many occasions, she didn’t complete her bowling quota that year. 

But when she came back in 2024, she didn’t repeat any of those mistakes. Remember, she was still bowling on a very batter-friendly Chinnaswamy in WPL this year, and she was absolutely phenomenal in the Bengaluru leg, where she picked up seven wickets at an average of 11 and an economy of 6.4. 

If you look at her beehive from that leg, you’ll find that she tried her best to keep the ball away from the bat swing, and her mid-70s pace allowed her to loop the ball and make the batters leave their crease to create momentum for their shots. She got three of her seven dismissals by bowling wide at the Chinnaswamy! 

This wasn’t just skill. This was sheer bowling smarts from the left-arm spinner, who was making a rousing comeback. This was also a display of her bouncebackability, which you associate with outwardly aggressive cricketers like her. Her selection for the Bangaldesh tour dotted all the i’s crossed all the t’s in her comeback tale. 

When she took the field against Bangladesh, she continued to deploy the same strategy of deceiving the batters with her loop and trajectory, as so far, on four of her six dismissals, the batters have gotten out while trying to dance down the crease and manoeuvre her for runs. In fact, in the three T20Is so far, she has got Nigar Sultana - Bangladesh’s skipper and best batter by a mile - out twice! 

Her methods are working as they used to. However, this version of Radha seems much smarter and hungrier, as her lines have proved in this series, where she’s targeting the stumps of the Bangladeshi batters a lot more. She understands the kind of help available to her and makes her plans accordingly. 

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There’s a famous video of Jemimah Rodrigues and Radha where Jemimah reveals that Radha watches ‘Virat Kohli aggression videos’ on YouTube. 

Radha that way, is no different from how Kohli is on the field. She’s aggressive, in your face, and will tell everyone what she thinks about you by shouting it out loud after dismissing you. She isn’t shy to do that. But what this outburst of passion does is it drives her to come back. 

It ensures that even if she has to make a space for herself in the Indian setup by leap-frogging Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Ekta Bisht, she’ll do that with her collars pointing skyways. And if she has to get back her spot in the side from the likes of Saika Ishaque, she’ll do that as well. 

The Indian team management needs Radha for this gumption and fight that she has shown in her comeback in ample measure. After all, the success of her version 2.0 is as crucial for India as it is for her own career. 

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