Precision pays for pacer Vidwath Kaverappa | Cricket News – Times of India

BENGALURU: Pace is not Vidwath Kaverappa’s strength. Precision is. When West Zone came out to bat on Friday morning at the M Chinnaswamy stadium in the Duleep Trophy final, the tailenders remained and South’s mainstay Kaverappa was well-aware that the innings lead was crucial.
He mixed lengths, taunted the batters with short balls and sneaked one between Dharmendra Singh Jadeja’s bat and pad to crash the gate and claim his fourth five-wicket haul in the format.
The 24-year-old has taken 14 wickets in three innings of the tournament thus far. On Friday, he returned a career-best 7/53 and will have a crucial role to play in the remainder of the match as South look to avenge their humiliating loss in the title clash last season.
“I’m happy that I could contribute to get ourselves back into the game. Somebody had to pull one’s socks up and put on a performance,” Kaverappa said.
Kaverappa believes that learning is important at this point of his career. “I’m learning from every game. At this age, I feel that’s important. Since it’s the beginning of my career, I should learn as much as possible to take my state or any other team to a higher level,” he said.
The youngster from Gonikoppal in Kodagu district of Karnataka, made his first-class debut in the 2021-2022 season, at a time when Karnataka’s pace bowling attack was going through a transitional phase. For Vyshak Vijaykumar and Kaverappa it was baptism by fire.
Also, there was resistance to Kaverappa’s Ranji Trophy debut in the 2021-22 season, more because of his lack of pace. With 41 wickets in 11 first-class matches, Kaverappa has been delivering consistently to silence his critics.
Coming into the Karnataka squad when Ronit More was struggling with injuries and Prasidh Krishna’s limited availability due to national duty, Kaverappa pointed out that former pacer Sreenath Arvind as the bowling coach helped. “I learnt a lot from him (Arvind). Since Vyshak and I didn’t have express pace, he taught us to rely more on our skill and variations to get wickets. He also helped me in fine-tuning my actions a little.”