England's twin missions at Headingley: Dent Kuldeep's confidence to win ODI series and lay down a marker for Tests

A one-day series is on the line at Headingley on Tuesday but also the last chance for some oneupmanship before the Tests and the most intriguing battle will be between Joe Root and Kuldeep Yadav.

England’s Test captain took on the responsibility of nullifying Kuldeep at Lord’s after he threatened to swamp the team following his 6-25 at Trent Bridge. 

With his 12th ODI hundred Root showed the others how to blunt Kuldeep and with India naming their Test squad this week a repeat performance could just put a shade of grey over the left-arm wrist spinner.  No doubt he will be one of three spinners in the squad alongside Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja but England would love nothing more than to see him edged out of the final XI for the first Test at Edgbaston because India fear he had been worked out in the last two ODIs. 

Root’s measured performance at Lord’s was the result of a settled mind, having let go of the anger and disappointment at being dropped from the Twenty20 side earlier in the week. Root gave himself time, playing deep in his crease and backing himself to read Kuldeep from the hand. He picked him and blended nicely in a 103 run stand with Eoin Morgan, who was more positive and used the sweep well to disrupt Kuldeep’s length. England played 15 percent more attacking shots against Kuldeep at Lord’s, compared with Trent Bridge, and used their feet more after guidance from batting coach Graham Thorpe, a fine player of spin himself.

It would be hugely encouraging for England’s Test team if Root now found the level of consistent high scoring that has eluded him for the past couple of years. This is the summer to stop talk about his failure to convert fifties into hundreds in Test cricket. With the heatwave baking pitches, it should be good for batting as long as Kuldeep and India’s spinners can be conquered.

Kuldeep has all the necessary skills to transfer his success in white-ball cricket to Test cricket because he bowls such a good length. But he showed at Lord’s he can lose his focus if the batsmen go after him a bit more. He was able to bowl 39 dot balls at Trent Bridge, but only 19 at Lord’s and sensing England were playing him better led to frustration building, more full tosses and bad balls. Two of his three wickets were caught on the boundary and the other, Jonny Bairstow, was a freakish dismissal. Leg spinners will always have bad days and we will see at Headingley how strong he is at bouncing back. 

Morgan wants his batsmen to attack Kuldeep again and that involves establishing an early dominance to get the measure of his bowling. “It's definitely a plus point for our players to bat well against him. I know he still took wickets but we managed to get some runs against him and put him under a little bit of pressure,” said Mark Wood. “I think the main thing is he keeps getting wickets in his first over. So I think what’s key going into this game is that if he gets a wicket early doors his confidence is up again, things like that, so if we can try to nullify that wicket-taking option that he's got straight away then hopefully we can shift the momentum against him to us.”

England brought the Merlyn bowling machine to Headingley but it sat on the outfield unused at nets on Monday. There are so few left-arm wrist spinners in the country that it has proved hard to find a net bowler to replicate Kuldeep’s bowling. Samit Patel’s brother Akhil, who played a handful of first-class games for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, bowls left arm wrist spin and has been approached by England but was unable to make it up to Headingley. Others will be asked to help out before the Test series with England planning to take the unusual step of netting on the Friday and Saturday in the week before the Test is due to begin on Aug 1. Normally preparations take place in the two days leading up to the game.