In recent times, featuring in the Indian squad on a consistent basis has become pretty difficult, especially for bowlers. A batter can find a place by being flexible in the line-up, but a new bowler can only feature in the XI in Test cricket only if one of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, and Mohammed Siraj is injured. Veteran India batter Dinesh Karthik empathized with Umesh Yadav before claiming that he was “always overlooked” on the Indian side.
Speaking to Cricbuzz on their ‘Rise of New India’ show, Dinesh Karthik was seen talking about the journey of Umesh Yadav to the Indian side – of how a son of a coal miner, who initially decided to become a police officer, eventually ended up being a fast bowler of the Indian cricket team.
Explaining the same, Dinesh Karthik said, “You have to understand his roots. He is a coal miner’s son, tried being part of the police academy. That did not work out and then he went into fast bowling and his growth rate at that stage, from 2008, when he started playing for Vidarbha, he made it to the Indian team in 2010, that’s a growth fast rate. Then he kept going still a certain point and the plateaued.”
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He further added, ” When it happens to any cricketer, you feel hard done by. He is no different and he must have felt sad. When you have an attack like Bumrah and Shami, the third one was always between Ishant and Umesh and a lot other times it would be Ishant, Shami and Umesh. But when they played two medium pacers in India it became Ishant and Shami at times.”
Dinesh Karthik admitted that despite picking wickets on being selected, it wasn’t enough for Umesh to prove his mettle and hence was “always overlooked” by the Indian team. The former Kolkata Knight Riders skipper then recalled that going unsold in the 2022 IPL mega auction was Umesh’s lowest point.
Explaining the same, Dinesh Karthik said, “He was always overlooked at times and that must have really hurt him because every time he came in he produced a two or three-wicket performance but was never good enough to hold on to that place. You know he was thrown out…I think the hardest time was when he was unsold at an auction. That must have hurt him really bad.”
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Umesh Yadav was later roped in by KKR and he scalped 16 wickets in 12 matches at an economy rate of just 7.06. The impressive run saw him return to the Indian T20I side as well.
