India’s quest to resolve the much-debated bowling all-rounder conundrum seemed to have found an answer with Umesh Yadav scoring a blistering century for Vidarbha in their Ranji Trophy Group A match against Odisha at Nagpur on Friday.
The 25-year-old right-arm pace bowler, who is an unknown entity when it comes to batting, scored his maiden first-class hundred and remained unbeaten at 128 as Vidarbha posted 467 runs in their first innings against the visiting Odisha team on Day 2 of the match.
Only yesterday, India’s limited-overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni revealed that the search is still on for a potent cricketer, who can fit into the role of a seam bowling all-rounder that will help the team get its combination right.
In fact, for the high-stake Mahatma Gandhi-Nelson Mandela series against South Africa, Indian selectors have called up uncapped Punjab all-rounder Gurkeerat Singh for the One Day International series. And the chairman of the selectors Sandeep Patil had said that “Gurkeerat was picked looking at his all-round capabilities… The demands of the game are such that we need more all-rounders.”
