Why Umesh succeeds in India but not abroad
Umesh Yadav averages 24.54 in India but 42.72 in the ‘SENA' countries. Why?
“Usually when you are playing at international level continuously, not just the body, but even your mind starts working differently,” Umesh Yadav told Sportstar back in January 2019, just after the tour of Australia where he played only one of the four Tests.
“You are constantly thinking about how to vary your lines, how to set a batsman up. But when you are in and out of the side, the whole rhythm gets lost,” he added. “Even the level of thinking changes because you tend to think more about switching on and off. When you are playing constantly, you know the role precisely and you think accordingly.”
“But when you aren’t getting a consistent run, you are thinking more about how to earn your chance. When you play one or two games overseas in a year, it definitely makes a difference.”
For a while now, Umesh has been vocal about his angst. Lack of opportunities overseas when he has been taking bagful of wickets at home is a cause of disappointment for the pacer. Umesh has been running through sides at an end in home conditions, only to be sidelined abroad when the trio of Ishant, Bumrah and Shami are fit, with a Siraj also now breathing down his neck.
Beyond the cricketing merit of India’s selection, you got to feel for Umesh. An earnest cricketer, he is warming the benches in more bowler-friendly conditions while going through what are his best years as an India Test cricketer. Labouring under the sun on Indian soil, just to be left out when you are supposed to feast on favourable surfaces can frustrate you a lot as fast-bowler. Umesh has been handling that frustration series after series.
Since the start of 2017, Umesh has played 22 Tests for India. 14 of these have been at home where he has struck 63 times at an average of just 19.34. But in the eight Tests played away, he has averaged 38.47 for his 17 scalps. If I leave aside that 2017 series in Sri Lanka, the record reads worse: 5 matches, 11 wickets @ 39.90 per piece. For context, we’d only talk of the ‘SENA’ countries when we refer to the word ‘overseas’ from here onwards.
Irregular chances are bound to have a negative influence on a player’s game and his record. So one can understand the alarming gap in Umesh’s home and away numbers in this period. But there is something to be said about Umesh’s Test career for India and it is that he has no one but himself to blame for his fall down the pecking order.
Given where Indian cricket stands today, it’s easy to forget that Umesh started off his Test career well before Shami and Bumrah did. Even Ishant Sharma wasn’t the Ishant Sharma of today when Umesh first burst onto the scene as India’s exciting young quick. He was the flagbearer of change in the Indian approach to fast-bowling when, after the horrors of England 2011, they started moving away from nibbling swing bowlers to hit-the-deck pacemen, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar being an exception.
On his very first trip overseas — to Australia in 2011–12 — Umesh looked the most penetrative of the Indian quicks, taking 14 wickets, including a five-fer in Perth, and dismissing the great Ricky Ponting a couple of times to be hailed as the find of India’s otherwise disastrous tour. Though his average was very high (39.35), it didn’t matter as much back then since India had now found a fast-bowler with obvious talent and promise for life after Zaheer Khan.
Disappointingly, however, that tour didn’t spur Umesh on to the heights his career was expected to reach. At the end of 2016, he was averaging 38.94 after 26 Tests with only one five-wicket haul to his name. Even in Tests in India, he was a struggler in that period and conceded 34.45 runs per wicket across 14 Tests.
One obvious issue with Umesh was his control and consistency. He sprayed the ball on both sides of the wicket and went at 3.73 runs per over till the end of 2016. But here’s an interesting thing, control and consistency are still an issue with Umesh. Even in this period, post-2017, he has been going for 3.34 runs per over. In India also, his economy rate is 3.29, which is the worst among his most regular bowling mates — Shami (2.91), Ashwin (2.69) and Jadeja (2.34).
So why exactly then is Umesh taking so many wickets in India on surfaces that don’t heavily favour fast-bowling, with a cricket ball — SG — that doesn’t respond to their wishes quite like a Kookaburra or Dukes does? What has he done differently to bring his overall Test average down by more than 8 runs per wicket in the last four years? And why despite that success mantra he is not making an impact abroad?
When ESPNcricinfo asked him about his home dominance in an interview last year, Umesh put his success down to more regular chances, greater familarity with the tracks and the conditions in play here. But that didn’t specifically explained the tactical and technical reasons behind his resounding success in India.
Below is a list from ‘Statsguru' featuring Umesh’s figures in all innings at home since the start of 2017:
It would be a lengthier exercise to go through each one of those in detail. So I trimmed this down to performances versus Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka and focused only on stand-out spells where he took 3 or more wickets against these oppositions. The idea was to put a greater qualitative filter to this study and then identify the lengths and the lines at which Umesh has operated. For ball-tracking, I took screenshots out of BCCI app’s hawk-eye section. What you’ll see below are representations of the ‘Pitch Map’ and the ‘Beehive Placement’ from each of the six spells that I arrived at after applying the two filters specified above. I couldn’t get the exact % of balls at particular lines and lengths out of these, but no worries, they still provided me a decent enough glimpse of the two for this study.
Pune 2017, first-innings 4/32 versus Australia
Ranchi 2017, first-innings 3/106 versus Australia
Dharamshala 2017, second-innings 3/29 versus Australia
Pune 2019, first-innings 3/37 versus South Africa
Pune 2019, second-innings 3/22 versus South Africa
Ranchi 2019, first-innings 3/40 versus South Africa
One thing that jumps out from the beehives here is a genuine effort to concentrate on the stump-line. A large portion of Umesh’s deliveries are aimed at the stumps. It reflects in the breakdown of his dismissals. At home, since 2017, 28 of Umesh’s 63 wickets are bowleds (14) and LBWs (14). Interestingly, there are more (35) caught dismissals. But it makes sense for a swing bowler delivering the stump-line (near or at the stumps) to be inducing edges and miscues infront and behind the stumps. As many as 18 of these 35 are caught-wicketkeeper dismissals. To further assert that Umesh’s general line is indeed aimed at the stumps, I checked the ‘wagon wheel' available for the spells highlighted above on the BCCI app and it vindicates the beehives. Below are the screenshots of wagon wheels from each of those six spells, enlisted in the order they were placed above.
Pune 2017, first-innings 4/32 versus Australia
*Note: the actual record of runs conceded in this innings is 32 only, not 31 as shown in the wagon wheel.
Ranchi 2017, first-innings 3/106 versus Australia
Dharamshala 2017, second-innings 3/29 versus Australia
Pune 2019, first-innings 3/37 versus South Africa
Pune 2019, second-innings 3/22 versus South Africa
Ranchi 2019, first-innings 3/40 versus South Africa
Now, cricket is an off-side game. With more right-handers than left-handers playing and a strict leg-side field rule (only two fielders allowed behind square on the on-side) forcing most bowlers not named ‘Neil Wagner’ to bowl conventional lines, there will always be more runs scored from third man to cover region than they would be from fine-leg to mid-wicket. But it’s amazing, how a very higher percentage of runs off Umesh’s bowling are still made through the leg-side.
From the wagon wheels above, a total of 41.84% of the runs off his bowling during these spells were scored through the leg-side. When Umesh ran through the hapless West Indies in Hyderabad back in 2018, 50% of the first-innings runs and 71% of the second-innings runs off his bowling were scored through the leg-side. In the D/N Test against Bangladesh, where he picked up eight wickets for the match, Umesh gave away 66% of the first-innings runs and 49% of the second-innings runs off his bowling through the leg-side.
Being a stump feaster points out to not just Umesh’s approach but also his role in the attack and how India have tended to use him — in short, sharp, attacking bursts, with swing movement being the main weapon in all this. Umesh is good at swing bowling. He is so good at it that there was a chance he might have had a significant ODI career for India just as a first-powerplay enforcer if not for his limitations in the latter part of the innings. In 50-over cricket, India couldn’t have carried Umesh as one of their two premier quicks, with the likes of Bhuvi and Bumrah helping them cover more bases on flat pitches. But in home Tests, where Ashwin, Jadeja and Shami are their bankers and India have a lot more runs to play around with, they could field an enforcer and give him a free hand: just run-in and attack those three sticks with all your force and the swing you generate.
In all of the 14 Tests involving Umesh at home since 2017, India average 47.05 with the bat at 3.65 runs per over. They have a bowling average of 21.51 and economy rate of 2.96. Umesh concedes 3.29 runs per over in these matches, but averages 19.34 with a strike-rate of 35.2. As stated above, Umesh’s economy rate is worse than Shami, Ashwin and Jadeja in these games. But his strike-rate is better than all bar Shami (33.9). The rest three being the more robust operators for the conditions, they control the game from their end and allow Umesh to do his thing when he comes on.
From the batsman’s perspective, the presence of Shami, Ashwin and Jadeja, who can bat at №7 and allow India to field another spinner of quality, means they have no choice but to try and take the attacking options against pacers like Umesh. Which is why, while Umesh’s economy rate is on the higher side, his rate of wicket-taking is also so eye-catchingly high. Play Umesh through safely, and you let go of the rarely offered scoring opportunities against this Indian home attack. Take those risks, and you fuel Umesh’s impact and India’s wickets tally. It’s a very thin rope that visiting batsmen walk in India against this group.
But this is tactical. Technically, Umesh’s success, as mentioned above, revolves around the swing factor. And not just the old-ball reverse swing, it is also the new-ball movement he extracts. It is something the ever insightful Karthik Krishnaswamy highlighted in an excellent piece written earlier this year on ESPNcricinfo. Below is a screenshot taken out of Karthik’s must-read, which shows how Umesh has done better than even Bumrah when it comes to just the new-ball bowling. In all conditions.
Umesh has always had a natural outswinger against the right-handers. But with time, he has also gone slingier with his action. Below, to your left is a glimpse of Umesh’s action from the 2011 Boxing Day Test facing Ponting and to your right is his action bowling to Roston Chase in the 2018 Hyderabad Test. Focus on the straightness of the release at MCG and the slingier version of the same against West Indies.
As we’ve discussed before, a straighter release (especially if not abnormally or let’s say ‘Kyle Jamieson’ level high) makes it easier for a batsman to pick the ball from the hands, gauge its line and length and react accordingly. The slingier (or wider) a bowler goes, a greater sense of deception develops around his angle of release. Ever since Umesh has gone through this transformation with his action, he is also accentuating the impact of an unconventional style of swing bowling. Before this, Umesh was not only giving a greater sighter of his release but also making it more evident as to which the way the ball would swing. A straighter release means the ball goes into and across a right-hand batsman with a more vertical seam position in conventional arc (pointing from mid-on to third-man for outswing and from mid-off to fine-leg for the inswing, which batsmen are used to). But a slingier action, with that pivot in the wrist-position, means the seam is now rotating more horizontally and is directed, even for what seems to the batsman an outswinger, in the unconventional mid-off to fine-leg arc. The ball then further drowns in its axis and back-spins from a square-leg to point direction towards the stumps.
From the split-screen above, especially the one of the right, you’d assume it’s an outswinger. But here’s a thing, it is not. Look where this ball actually ended, with Chase drawn into playing a completely different line.
Now, it would be easy to assume that this ball just reverse-swung back into the right-hander. But it didn’t. From the video link below, one gets a clear sighter that this relatively new 25-over-old ball actually curved and back-spun late into Chase, who, as most Test batsmen would do, looked at where the seam is pointed initially and anticipated the ball to go away from him and set himself up accordingly. Only to end up getting his bat down at an incorrect angle and see his stumps uprooted.
Here’s another fine example of how batsmen often play the first line of release and seam position against Umesh before the late deviation (in the air and off the deck) befools them. This is from the first-innings of the day-night Test in Kolkata, where poor fellow Mohammad Mithun ending up edging one onto his stumps.
Look how the ball shaped up to be an outswing initially but quickly swivelled towards the off-stump via backward rotations through the air and after pitching, leaving Mithun no time to make any late adustments as he was forced into playing one just a tad outside the line of the ball. Again, this is not your traditional reverse-swing, not with the ever-glossier pink-ball and certainly not in the 11th over of the innings.
The other thing with this style of horizontal seamed, back-spin oriented swing bowling with a slingy action is that a lot of it happens below the parallel vision of the batsman. Much gets said about the higher release points making it difficult for the batsman, which is all very true. But it is equally challenging to play a delivery that is doing its tricks at a level below the batsman’s eye-line. Look at the number of balls from Umesh which ended at just about stump height or below in one of the six spells we saw the pitch-maps and beehives of. This is from Ranchi 2017 Test, first-innings.
Umesh has always been a skiddy pacer but a slingier action, varying release points (smarter use of the crease) and the below eye-line back-spin he generates for swing in a more horizontal axis is now blurring the whole process of a batsman correctly assessing the line of the ball facing him. And at the Test level, it can never be said enough, you don’t need the big banana swing to get batsmen out, inducing only the slightest of errors in their decision-making is often good enough to send them back. Umesh’s traits enforce those errors.
It is why Lasith Malinga, in his brief 30-match Test career, had as many as ten instances of four wickets or more in an innings. Why, a Fidel Edwards has been running through sides in county cricket. Swing is dangerous, but it is even more dangerous when its direction is not easily decipherable and its happening below your parallel vision as a batsman. Even if you play just the stump-line, how sure can you still be of not getting beaten on the inside or the outside edge against such bowling? Ask, Roston Chase. Or Faf du Plessis here. This Du Plessis wicket also shows that Umesh doesn’t always impart backward rotations on the ball in a horizontal axis, creating a good mix with the more vertical axis ones. These vertical ones are referred widely as the ‘wobble seam’ balls. Umesh also got Aiden Markram out with this type of delivery here.
Umesh, of course, wasn’t always this good at swing bowling. Here’s another telling stat from CricViz, highlighting one key reason behind the pre and post 2017 split in his career. Umesh is now bowling his first few spells so much better than he did before, with his deliveries carrying so much greater wicket-taking threat than they did earlier. Since 2017, 55% of Umesh’s all wickets have been top 4 batsmen (44 off 80), it was 51.47% before this (35 off 68 batsmen). At home, his dismissals feature 53.96% of top 4 batsmen since 2017, it was only 39.39% till the end of 2016.
The obvious follow up question to this would be, why then is Umesh 2.0 finding success abroad an elusive mistress? The reason for that is more tactical than technical. It was technical once — according to Criviz data, in his first 8 Tests played in Australia, Umesh averaged 51.9 in overs 1–40 — but it’s not technical anymore, as the details from the two dismissals below showcase clearly.
It’s not that Umesh suddenly forgets to keep the stumps in play or loses his amazingly improved ability to generate unconventional swing when he plays abroad.
Not at all.
It’s just that, while Umesh is a very improved swing and seam bowler, he hasn’t improved enough at one very important front as a Test bowler: control and consistency. In his last 5 ‘SENA’ Tests played intermittently since 2017, Umesh has an economy rate of 3.30 across 132.4 overs (to go with an average of 39.90), which, even though better than his overall career ‘SENA’ economy rate (4.16 from 12 matches), is still worse than all other regular Indian bowlers involved in at least two of those games. Interestingly, there are 19 maidens in here (nearly 15% of the overs, which is quite decent). But it points out to a pattern as well. When Umesh gets it right in helpful conditions, he is nearly unplayable. But when he errs, and there are more overs where he errs, his overs tend to be really expensive and include boundaries. On both sides of the wicket.
As they do at home, India could’ve carried an enforcer of Umesh’s quality even in foreign conditions despite his lack of control if they had the same level of cushion with the bat. But in conditions where runs at absolutely premium for their batting unit against opposition attacks of unprecedented depth, that becomes a very risky proposition. In the 12 ‘SENA’ Tests involving Umesh, India have a batting average of only 25.65. Since 2017, that average has dipped to 20.89 in the ‘SENA’ Tests that Umesh has played. As a bowling unit in these 12 matches, India have a collective average of 37.76 with an economy rate of 3.52. No wonder they have lost nine and won just one of those 12 games.
In the post-2017 ‘SENA’ Tests not involving Umesh, however, India have been in more control as a bowling unit, going for a slightly better 3.08 runs per over while taking wickets at 29.30 runs per piece. And, subsequently, have a much better win-loss record (5–7).
It reflects well on India’s other pace options, but not Umesh, who is losing out on crucial opportunities abroad despite improved skills and enhanced wicket-taking ability because he doesn’t give his team enough control while he operates. Umesh would argue, of course, that he would become a more rounded bowler abroad with more regular game time in those conditions, which could be true. However, with others having leapfrogged him in the reckoning, he has no option but to make those minimal and irregular chances count and show better control and consistency whenever he plays. It’s sad that such a good swing and seam exponent has been almost unselectable abroad, but Umesh has no one but himself to blame for his situation. If only he gave India more ‘control’ when he gets his chance… Still, however, Umesh’s role in India’s ascent has been immense since he’s made sure they can dominate home Tests while resting Ishant and Bumrah and keep the two premier pacers fresh for overseas challenges. That’s a huge contribution in itself. Also, in the days of the WTC, there should certainly be greater respect for conditions-based excellence in our sport.
