Indian wicket-keeper batter Dinesh Karthik opened up on Umesh Yadav’s career being hard done as a part of the star-studded Indian pace bowling generation. Umesh, who first played for India back in 2010, has always faced heavy competition to be in the Indian Test XI, even after doing more than enough whenever he plays.
Despite making his ODI debut in back 2010 and being a part of the Indian Test squad regularly, the Vidarbha pacer’s only hope to make it to the Test playing XI comes up when one of in the Test line-up comprising the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma is unavailable for selection.
Speaking to Cricbuzz after the third Test between India and Australia, Dinesh Karhik recalled the whole journey of Yadav’s career, right from being a son of a coal miner to turning into a star seamer from Vidarbha.
“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 at a very fast rate”,
Karthik said.
Karthik went on to add how he is always overlooked despite doing well. Even in Bumrah’s absence at home Tests, Umesh has fallen behind in the pecking order to Shami and Ishant. Umesh averages around 14 at a magnificent strike rate of 26.7 in Test at home since 2018.
“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.”
The veteran then recalled Umesh going unsold in the IPL 2022 mega auction and admitted that it must have hurt him very badly. However, Kolkata Knight Riders signed him later and the ace pacer had a more than decent season, picking 16 wickets in 12 games, which earned him a recall to Indian T20I side later against Australia last September.
