Umesh Yadav:
Born, October 25, 1987, Umesh Kumar Tilak Yadav is an Indian cricketer, who represents Vidarbha in domestic cricket. Yadav got the ticket to the Indian team quite early as he had only two years’ experience in First-Class cricket, when he was selected for the team and made his debut in 2009.
1. His father, was a worker in a coalmine .Umesh has two elder brothers and his father never wanted any of his sons to work in coalmine.
2. Umesh is one of those Indian cricketers, who never took studies seriously. After completing his HSC, he gave up studies but not for cricket. He quit studies simply because he had no interest in studying further.
3. After quitting studies, Yadav’s first aim was to get selected in Indian Army and serve the nation. But he was rejected, as he was destined for something else.
4. After getting rejected from Army, he tried his hands at becoming a police constable but narrowly missed out on that too. In the physical examination, he scored above 90 out of 100 and in the personal exam; he was not selected because of two points. Like other teenage boys, he too had no clue as to what to do further in his life.
5. He also used to play tennis ball cricket. He was a good fast bowler with tennis balls and once he even got a Man of the Series award; a cash prize of somewhere around Rs 10,000. He also tried to get into a college team on the basis of his performance in local tournaments, but didn’t get any chance as he never represented any club.
6. After getting rejected from college, Army and Police, He signed up for Vidarbha Gymkhana. As he did not have spikes, he was forced to play with a pair of shoes that had studs on their soles. He took three wickets for 37 runs in his 10-over spell. Soon his name became quite famous in Vidarbha region and as the word travelled fast, an official was sent from Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) to watch him bowl in a Twenty20 game. Yadav bowled a lot of yorkers in the death and got two-three batsmen bowled.
7. Soon Yadav was picked by VCA and tested in the semi-finals of inter-district three-day tournament in Amravati. The then Vidarbha captain Pritam Gandhe helped him play for Air India in a T20 tournament in Mumbai. Amidst all this, his father wanted him to get a degree in commerce but he couldn’t as he was busy playing.
After returning from Mumbai, Yadav was among the 30 probables for the Vidarbha Ranji squad. It was Gandhe who wanted Yadav in his team at any cost and got him selected him in his final 15.
8. There is an interesting story behind his Ranji Debut. Even after getting selected in the final 15, it was quite difficult for Gandhe to play Umesh as the pitch for the opening match of the 2008-09 season against Madhya Pradesh at Indore was perceived to be slow and only two fast bowlers were supposed to play and of course, Yadav was not one of them as he had no experience of playing in the domestic circuit.
But then Gandhe decided to play him at the expense of a batsman. Yadav repaid his captain’s faith and took four wickets for 72 runs in the first innings of the match. Though Vidarbha lost the match but they had found a new gem in Yadav, who became a First-Class cricketer barely a month after he started playing with the leather balls.
9.Yadav got married in 2013 to a girl named Tanya after a courtship of three years. Tanya is a fashion designer by profession. Both met during an IPL match and she is fond of cricket.