India fast bowler Umesh Yadav is concerned regarding the lesser game time he’s been offered in the past couple of years saying he’s reached a point in his career where the more he plays, the better it will be for him.
While Umesh forms an integral par of India’s Test setup, he’s been sidelined from its limited-overs plan. With the cricketing world increasingly focused on how to better manage the workload on the bowlers, Umesh feels his case is exact opposite.
“Workload management is a balance that you strike when you are constantly playing matches,” Umesh said on Saturday. “In my case, it’s been the opposite. I have played lesser and lesser in the past two years (2018 and 2019). So there hasn’t even been optimum workload for me. I am 31 years old and the next four to five years are very important. If you look at my record. I played four Tests last year (2019) and before that another four in 2018. In white ball, I played only one game last year.”
Umesh has played 45 Tests in which he has taken 142 wickets. “At this age, the more I bowl, the better I will get. That’s why I am playing five first-class (one vs Saurashtra after this game) to have some more workload,” he said.
2020 is the year of T20 World Cup and so Umesh has even lesser prospect of playing for India. So he’s trying to get more playing time through domestic and county cricket. “So in a World T20 year, after New Zealand tour, I have only IPL left and then no cricket. If I am not selected for white-ball cricket, I have precious little to do then,” he observed.
Explaining the reason behind his decision to not play county cricket last season, Umesh said, “I got a county offer last season (from Gloucestershire). They wanted me to play seven games but the BCCI workload management policy doesn’t allow me to play more than two or three games. So the deal didn’t work out. Also I had some niggles to take care of after IPL.”