On November 24, 2021, Matthew Kuhnemann was rechristened as Jaddu. By and for his Queensland teammates. The official edict was passed down by Marnus Labuschagne, not surprisingly, and picked up by captain Usman Khawaja. It transpired on a cloudy and breezy, spring afternoon at the Karen Rolton Oval in Adelaide. Kuhnemann had run through the South Australian middle-order, which included Travis Head and Alex Carey, on a pitch that had retained some significant damp spots under the surface. With the ball turning square, the Karen Rolton Oval had been virtually converted into a rank turner of a subcontinent variety. And the young left-arm spinner had virtually turned into Ravindra Jadeja, and not just in his teammates’ opinion. He had got the ball to grip, to turn and to spit at the batters. He eventually ended up with his best first-class figures of 5/25, which remained his best performance before Wednesday (March 1).
Here he was on an actual rank turner in the subcontinent. A lot of the key characters from that afternoon in Adelaide were there too. Labuschagne was there. So were Khawaja, Head and Carey. But also in attendance was the original Jaddu himself. And Ravindra Jadeja would have been as impressed as the rest of them seeing the way Kuhnemann ran through the Indian batting line-up, to end up with sensational figures of 5/16.
What would have made it feel even better was that Queensland’s Jadduhad done a Jaddu on a day Jaddu himself would go on to put on a masterclass of bowling left-arm spin on a pitch with a lot of bite in it. There’s one thing meeting your heroes. Then there’s what the 26-year-old managed to do, by going head-to-head with his hero and nearly outdoing him.
Kuhnemann makes no bones about how much he looks up to India’s talismanic all-rounder. Not only does he mention it very often. There’s also this evident reverence in his voice whenever he is asked to speak about Jadeja and his influence on him. Speaking to SENradio after his debut in Delhi, he’d started blushing when reminded of Labuschagne’s insistence on referring to him as Jadduwhenever they played together for Queensland. And on a day he gave Australia their best chance yet of dominating a Test match in India, he was back at it, admitting the impact that Jadeja has had on his bowling.
“I’m a massive fan of Jadeja and Ashwin so watch how they have bowled in the last few years. The way he (Jadeja) uses his crease and probably the biggest thing I picked up in Delhi is that he brings his length back a little bit when the ball gets a little bit older. That’s probably the main thing I took out of the second Test and brought into this Test, probably my length. Don’t want to get full especially on a wicket that stays low, being consistent on that 5-6 meter length,” is how he summed it up.
And that’s just how he did it. By managing his length and also showing a lot of courage. It started with the setup of Rohit Sharma. Having picked up the Indian captain’s intention to come after him straight away, Kuhnemann chose to keep throwing the ball up and inviting him to do so. Most spinners with his inexperience of bowling in these conditions would have instead immediately gone on the defensive and tried bowling flatter and fuller. Instead, he pulled his length back expertly to catch Rohit just short of getting to the pitch of the ball, and having him stumped. The ball to Shubman Gill was nearly as good if not better than what Jadeja would bowl later in the day to get rid of Steve Smith, ball angling in from wide of the crease, pitching on off and middle before turning sharply and catching the outside-edge.
Shreyas Iyer might have contributed to his own demise at the crease largely, but it was Kuhnemann’s change in trajectory that got the right-hander playing back in an attempt to be forceful, much like hundreds of batters have done and failed against Jadeja over the years. This wasn’t just an overseas spinner getting lucky with a subcontinent pitch that had way too much on offer for him than he’d ever dreamt of before. This was genuinely classy left-arm spin bowling on a pitch that admittedly did have a lot on offer for him. It also kind of puts Jadeja’s incredible success on these pitches into context, where it’s not always about the surface playing into his hands but often more about how he’s made the most of the surface that’s been handed to him. It’s about skill and it’s about persistence, and both Jaddus were oozing with it in Indore on Day 1 of the third Test.
It’s already a remarkable story about how Kuhnemann has gone from playing a Shield game less than two week ago to now being an integral member of Australia’s spin attack on an Indian tour. It could only get better you’d think if the Queenslander does actually get to pick the brains of his spinning idol. But he’ll have to wait for that as Kuhnemann revealed himself.
“I said, have you got any tips for me after the last Test? He said ‘yes, at the end of the series'”
For now though, Queensland’s Jaddu can be content with keeping up with India’s Jaddu.
