Melbourne: Young India pacer Umesh Yadav is very promising and his “old-fashioned side-on” style of bowling will fetch him more wickets in future once he gathers a bit of experience, believes former Australian fast bowler Geoff Lawson.
Yadav was the pick of Indian bowlers as he returned with a three-wicket haul scalping David Warner, Shaun Marsh and Ricky Ponting in the first two sessions on the opening day of the first cricket Test against Australia here today.
“He’s a very side-on, old-fashioned fast bowler. That’s why he bowls fast and bowls out-swingers,” Lawson told ‘The Australian’.
“He reminds me of (South African) Vernon Philander only that he bowls quicker than Vernon. But they both get the seam up and bowl out-swingers and Yadav’s doing it at 145, 148 (km/h) sometimes. So if you can do that then you are going to get a lot of good players out.”
The 54-year-old former Pakistan coach feels Yadav could have scalped more wickets if a proper field was in place for the tearaway pacer who touched the 150km/h mark today.
“He’s only a young guy. A good, strong guy. So he’s quite promising. He just needs to get a bit more experience behind him,” Lawson observed.
“And they’ve got to learn to set some proper fields for him on Australian wickets. Which means a few more behind the wickets on the off side.
“That’s probably cost him 30 runs today. Through third man, through third slip. But other than that he’s bowled delightfully well,” he added.
Earlier, Yadav said he felt nervous nervous bowling at the likes of Ricky Ponting in his first Test against Australia but Sachin Tendulkar’s advice hugely boosted his confidence as he scalped three crucial wickets on the opening day on MOnday.
Yadav was seen to get a lot of encouragement from Tendulkar at mid-off or mid-on and the young fast bowler said the Indian legend told him to bowl fuller length deliveries to get wickets. (PTI)
