India’s pace-spearhead Umesh Yadav is now trying to use his stint in county cricket to be active all the time as he does not play in the white-ball set-up now.
“Workload management is a balance that you strike when you are constantly playing matches. 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,” Umesh Yadav said.
He is currently playing a Ranji Trophy game for Vidarbha. He has taken 142 wickets in 45 Tests and feels that at his age, he needs to play more games to be in rhythm.
“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. 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,” said the pacer.
“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,” said Umesh. “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.”
However, the pacer would not mind playing county cricket this year as after New Zealand, India will play in Australia later the year.
“The concern about county cricket is that if they have a professional playing for them, they would hand over the ball to him and expect that bowler to send down maximum overs. I don’t think you can go into a game thinking about that you will bowl a stipulated number of overs. If my body permits and situation demands, I can bowl 25 overs in a day also,” said Umesh Yadav.
