Two Tests in December before this, one in February 2020, preceded by a cluster of home Tests in October-November of 2019 and four more across three months in 2018. It’s a ritual now, watching Umesh Yadav play a couple of Tests before slipping out of public memory and then bobbing up again. Sometimes it’s the body but more often it’s the ridiculously talented fast bowling line-up India have assimilated over the past five years that threatens to make redundant a
Two Tests in December before this, one in February 2020, preceded by a cluster of home Tests in October-November of 2019 and four more across three months in 2018. It’s a ritual now, watching Umesh Yadav play a couple of Tests before slipping out of public memory and then bobbing up again. Sometimes it’s the body but more often it’s the ridiculously talented fast bowling line-up India have assimilated over the past five years that threatens to make redundant a 10-year career comprising 49 Tests. But Yadav keeps throwing punches. His latest was a knockout, leaving Joe Root flabbergasted and handing India a shot at redemption after another familiar batting capitulation.
What makes Root’s dismissal worth a hundred rewinds is the tinge of impossibility attached to it. On a pitch that has traditionally aided batting, Root waited, his bat hitting the middle-stump guard just once before hanging on to a high back-lift. The confidence in his stance speaks of a man supremely assured of his off-stump, someone who has sorted a crack bowling attack to plunder more than 500 runs in the series. On 21 off 24, Root was again warming up to run away with the game like he had done at Headingley. Steering Jasprit Bumrah late past gully for a boundary, tucking Mohammed Siraj past fine-leg for an easy four, the tell-tale signs were there. But then it came, almost against the run of play, a ball out of nowhere. Yadav was all wrist that delivery, making the ball hold its seam as it hit back of length to gain pace. Then it wobbled and nipped back dangerously to breach Root’s late defence and take the top of his off-stump.
Almost by instinct, Root tried to trace the ball back to the pitch. He didn't know what hit him. And that’s completely understandable. The last time Root was bowled in Test cricket, he was already past his hundred when he tried to cover-drive Bumrah. Bat nowhere close to body, it could be excused as a tired shot that allowed Bumrah to sneak through his gates. But Root is generally a very good back foot player, as demonstrated in this series where Root has switched to high-scoring mode very early into his innings. High awareness of the off-stump fuels this confidence. And also the knowledge that bowlers haven’t been able to figure out the right line to him.
Yadav often tends to incriminate himself on this count. On Thursday too the script was veering that way. He strayed on to Root’s pads and the England captain flicked him through deep-midwicket. Two balls later, Yadav over-corrected to pitch short and wide and Root rocked back to send it to the third man boundary. He was occasionally getting the length right but not the line that had the potential to cleave Root into two. With the kind of pace Yadav generates, he is the high risk-high-and-returns bowler every team wants but dreads, and Root was having no problem feeding off his pace. Yadav is also a contradiction on the move, a proven specialist at home where India rarely venture beyond two pacers. With an average of 24.54 and strike rate of 45.7 at home (to give some perspective, Ashwin has a home strike rate of 47.8), Yadav should have ideally seen more action away. But he hasn’t. Neither will he, if Bumrah, Siraj and Shami continue to do the job for Virat Kohli.
It’s the singularity of that delivery though that bolsters Yadav’s legend---perfect length, ideal line, searing pace and sharp movement, all neatly packaged into one ball that was able to take the wind out of Root’s sails. It doesn’t make sense, that delivery, when you try to summarise Yadav’s career. Doesn’t it feel like a near-miss, especially when you have raging successes like Bumrah, Shami or Siraj in the same dressing room? He has had his bad days, and possibly too many months spent at the hospital or on the sidelines. But he also perseveres to give us these moments. And as long as he can bowl like this, knocking off the best in his best phase, Yadav will always find a way to the cricket lover's heart.
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