After three and a half years away, Umesh has returned to take Shami’s place, and Rohit Sharma justifies the decision!
After three and a half years away, Umesh has returned to take Shami’s place, and Rohit Sharma justifies the decision! Umesh Yadav is back on the Indian T20I team after 43 months. He last played against Australia in February 2019. At last, he replaces Mohammed Shami, who is off the team after testing positive for Covid-19. Umesh is part of the squad for a three-match T20I series against Australia. Obviously, this has caused a few people to raise their eyebrows. But, with the World Cup coming up in less than a month, India brought back a pacer who hasn’t played in a limited-overs game in almost five years.
When asked about bringing Umesh back before the first T20I against Australia, India captain Rohit Sharma gave a detailed explanation at a press conference before the game. Meanwhile, Umesh arrived in Chandigarh on Sunday morning.
“Yes, I’ll give you a proper reason,” Rohit said Sunday in response to a question from the Hindustan Times. Furthermore, Rohit explained why they didn’t take players like Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, and Mohammed Siraj into consideration.
“There were a few options. A few of them are injured like Prasidh is injured. Siraj has been in the county. We do not want him to fly all the way, maybe play one or two games. That won’t be fair… And obviously, with Shami, an unfortunate incident happened. Avesh was quite sick in the Asia Cup, and he needs some time to recover. So you know from the fitness point of view, he needed some time to go and rebuild his fitness bowling,” Rohit added.
Umesh’s Flashy IPL
Umesh was the best player for the Kolkata Knight Riders in this year’s IPL. He took 16 wickets with the new ball. The right-arm seamer was a game-winner for English County team Middlesex in the Royal London Cup. Then, he strained a muscle in his thigh and couldn’t play anymore.
He worked on getting better for a month at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. However, they only considered him for the team after the NCA physios gave him the all-clear.
Rohit’s Take
“Guys like Shami who have played for a long time don’t need to be playing that particular format to be considered. They have proven themselves as a player wherever in whatever format they have played. And we understand the quality they bring. It’s the new guys, you know, whose performance is keenly watched,” Rohit said.“Guys like Shami and Umesh, if they’re fit and fine, they will be called back. We don’t need to look at the format. And we saw how Umesh bowled in the IPL. He gives us an option to use him up front. He swings the new ball up front. So yeah, that was the thought… pretty, pretty simple actually. There was not much of a discussion for us. And keeping in mind that, you know, the World Cup is around the corner, we’ve tried a lot of players and we’ve seen what each of those players will bring to the table. And we are very much clear about our thought process and how we want to move forward,” Rohit added.