This is a very new answer to this very old post. Simplest way for a Kendo Date Picker is to send one character at a time.

The formatting and examples on the Kendo site are not really helpful, sorry to say. One has to see how the date works. In this case, type 2 numbers for day, the date picker cell will automatically skip to the month. Type in 1-12 for Jan to December. Or use characters to bring up the month. D will bring up Dec, J -- Jan, but you have to then type out u to get Jun, Jul needs to be fully typed out. Why it won't skip to year, no idea. One must put a / in to skip to year.

When I figure out the Date Picker Icon, I'll add to this answer.