Bouncers just to push batsman to the back foot, opines Umesh Yadav
Umesh Yadav believes that ever since the Phil Hughes incident rocked the cricketing world, bowlers have not bowled bouncers to hit the batsman but only to use it as a weapon to push the batsman on their backfoot. Yadav bagged a five-wicket haul in the final innings of the pink ball Test in Kolkata.
The Indian pacer has been enjoying a great form at home, as a part of the pacers’ quartet besides Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma. As India decided to rest Bumrah across the entire home season, the selectors had gone for Umesh Yadav as an automatic selection. Even though his selection was questioned with many, in the following three months Yadav proved himself with his bowling.Â
While his fierce style of bowling is good news for his team, the fact that the Indian bowlers have forced four concussion substitutes in only about three months has raised some eyebrows. Bangladesh’s Liton Das and Nayeem Hasan in the recently concluded D/N game in Kolkata, and before that South Africa’s Dean Elgar in Ranchi and West Indies’s Darren Bravo in Jamaica. These batsmen were hit and sent home by Indian pacers over the past few months.
However, Yadav believes that bouncers are just a part of a bowler’s weaponry to “create doubt in the batsman’s mind”. And he believes that bowlers should be unapologetic about the same.
“Look, the bouncer is a weapon. We use it to push the batsman on the back foot or to create a doubt in his mind. There is a part of you who wants to make sure that the batsman has not been hit hard or hurt. And after the Phil Hughes incident, bowlers did take some time to deal with it because bowlers don’t bowl bouncers to hit the batsman,” Yadav was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
“But, yes, there are occasions when the game gets heated and that’s when you sometimes see more bouncers than usual but I think that’s part of the game.”
When asked about what he feels about the concussion-rule in place, Yadav said it’s good in a ways since it does not force an injured batsman to carry on, which could be a danger to his safety.
“It’s good in a way, because someone’s life should not be in danger. If someone has to bat forcibly when he is not in a position to bat, he can always retire from the game. Also, if a good batsman is hit and can’t bat, the team can make up for that loss,” Yadav stated.
However, he also feels that with the frequency of concussion substitutes increasing, it might become a case for batsmen around the world to use the rule in order to escape difficult situations. “In the past, there have been instances when batsmen have been hit in worse ways, but that time there was no rule. Now you have got a cushion. When the rule was not there, people used to get hit and they would stay on. Now when the batsmen get hit, they go away,” he concluded.