Dinesh Karthik Opens Up About 35-year-Old Pacer’s Journey, Says He Was ‘Always Overlooked’

The only hope for someone else to make it to the playing XI is only when one of them is rested or injured.

New Delhi: India is flooded with talent when it comes to cricket. Sometimes one needs a bit of luck along with hardwork and Consistency. Indian Test bowling line-up is jam-packed from last few years with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma playing majority of the matches. The only hope for someone else to make it to the playing XI is only when one of them is rested or injured.

Speaking to Cricbuzz on their ‘Rise of New India’ show, Karthik traced back Umesh Yadav’s journey to the Indian side.

“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. 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”.

“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.