Umesh Yadav raises concern to selectors about 'lack of cricket'

For the past couple of years, Umesh Yadav has served as an able back-up behind the pace trio of Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah in both home and away conditions in Test matches. In the absence of Bumrah, Yadav stepped up in the home series against South Africa and Bangladesh and showed the consistency that the Indian team expected out of him for so long.

Not being in the scheme of things for India in white-ball cricket and a back up in red-ball cricket, Yadav basically will have no cricket to play after IPL. This lack of game time that he has been getting over the past couple of years has unsettled him a bit.

“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,” Yadav was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

In 45 Test matches for India, Yadav has picked 142 wickets and felt that he needed to have more game time. Due to this, he has been playing Ranji Trophy for Vidarbha.

“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," Yadav asserted.

Yadav further claimed that he had an opportunity to play County cricket but could not do so because of BCCI's policy of workload management.

“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,” stated Yadav.

Yadav is hopeful of playing some County cricket this year as India's next Test assignment after the New Zealand tour is directly the Australian tour towards the end of the year.