Veteran wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik may not be a Team India regular currently but his quotes and statements keep the fans informed and entertained. His fan following has also shot up since he started commentating on cricket matches. And now, he is often heard sharing interesting anecdotes on cricket talk shows.
In a recent conversation with Cricbuzz, on their ‘Rise of New India’ show, Karthik went down memory lane and recalled the journey of Umesh Yadav in the Indian cricketing set-up. The fast bowler recently completed 100 Test wickets at home while playing against Australia in Indore. He has been an integral part of the team in the longest format of the game but gets fewer chances due to stiff competition with the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami.
Karthik said Umesh tasted early success after bursting into the scene in 2010. But once the younger lot came and performed well, he was eventually sidelined.
“You have to understand his roots. He is a coal miner’s son, and 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 at a certain point and then plateaued. When it happens to any cricketer, you feel hard done by. He is no different and he must have felt sad,” Karthik said.
“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,” Karthik added.
Despite exhibiting decent performances, Umesh was often overlooked, be it by the Indian team or the IPL franchises. Karthik said going unsold in the 2022 IPL mega auction was Umesh’s lowest point.
“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,” he said.
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