Posted by The Test series against Australia starting on December 17 may present him with that chance he craves. With Ishant Sharma unavailable, Yadav is likely to make the XI.
It must be tough being in the shoes of Umesh Yadav. His first outing after lockdown was in the IPL where he was benched after two wayward performances. He has battled the tag of not being an able white-ball bowler, of not being a good Test exponent away from home, and of being too inconsistent for a captain’s liking. He doesn’t have the numbers to argue his way out of these perceptions; but he has reasoned in the past that he has not been given enough opportunities to prove himself overseas.
The Test series against Australia starting on December 17 may present him with that chance he craves. With Ishant Sharma unavailable, Yadav is likely to make the XI. The Nagpur bowler has started well, taking wickets in the side game against Australia A in Sydney on Monday.
Greenhorn Will Pucovski and Joe Burns—they are favourites to open together in the first Test if Dave Warner (groin) fails to recover—fell in Yadav’s opening spell. Yadav has been guilty of getting carried away by the short ball in the past, but he used it to his advantage in his three dismissals.
Pucovski, 22, didn’t show any of the patience that has got experts talking about him, the in-form batsman cutting a short ball outside off-stump to be caught at point. Burns, one half of Australia’s Test opening combination, followed, caught in two minds facing a rising ball outside off, the faint edge taken by fit-again keeper Wriddhiman Saha.Australia captain Tim Paine also perished to a Umesh Yadav bouncer, caught brilliantly at backward square leg by Prithvi Shaw. With more luck, Yadav could also have had acclaimed batting talent Cameroon Green, but he was grassed at slips and finished unbeaten on 114 on Day Two of the three-day game.
India has three more bowling innings in tour games to identify the third seamer to support Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. With Yadav’s spell on Monday, combined with his experience, that decision may already have been made. India will miss Ishant’s control and old-ball skills, but in his absence, Yadav is the only other seamer to have been on three Australian tours.
If Yadav is indeed the third seamer, India may have to change strategy and use him as an attacking option. “You can’t clutter his mind with line-and-length talk. You have to use him as a wicket-taker,” says Subroto Banerjee, former India seamer and Yadav’s coach. “I have been seeing him for 12 years. All I tell him is ‘bindaas daal’ (bowl without a care). I won’t call him the most intelligent of bowlers. But if you know to use him well, he can bowl you match-winning spells.”
Banerjee is happy to see Yadav’s first day at work on the tour, but believes the Test pitches may not have the life the Drummoyne Oval has shown. The first Test is the pink-ball game at Adelaide. The Indian think-tank knows in the team’s only previous pink-ball Test, Yadav took eight wickets at the Eden Gardens against Bangladesh.
It all comes together for Yadav when he bowls at home—96 wickets at an average of 24.5. The bumper is only used sparingly, and bowled and lbw come into play as the SG ball sways on Yadav’s command.
Overseas, he has only 48 wickets and the average goes up to 42.3, in the 18 Tests he has played in a 10-year career. But eight of those Tests are in Australia, which includes a 5-wicket haul on his first tour in 2011-12.
“He has enough experience to know how to strike a balance between control and attack. I hope they decide to unleash him and not try to discipline him too much. If you tell him to get 3-4 wickets in a day, and not bother about runs, he will find a way to get them,” says Banerjee.
comment 0 Comments
more_vert