CHENNAI: 19.05. If one were told this is the first-class average of an Indian bowler with 224 wickets across six seasons (from 2015-16), the first assumption would be that he is a spinner.
If there were any doubts, it would have diminished if they knew the average dropped down to 16.53 with 122 scalps in the last 27 matches. Except that it isn’t; it belongs to Saurashtra captain Jaydev Unadkat.
Such has been the record of the left-arm pacer in first-class cricket that it's almost impossible to believe that the numbers don't belong to a spinner. To add more context to the significance his performance holds, in this period, Saurashtra reached the Ranji Trophy final twice before winning their maiden title under Unadkat’s captaincy in 2019-20.
This is why, at some level, it is difficult to understand why Unadkat hasn’t received any reward in form of a call-up in red-ball cricket for India A, if not the Indian team despite the surreal consistency he had shown. The last time he was selected for India A was for the 2016 quadrangular white-ball series in Australia. For red ball matches, he hasn’t been picked since 2013.
Even as India A team are playing New Zealand A in four-day matches, the left-arm pacer is in Chennai to play for West Zone in the Duleep Trophy quarterfinals against North East Zone at the M A Chidambaram Stadium from Thursday.
Does it affect him? Unadkat says that there is a disappointment, but he doesn't let it affect him.
“There's another side where I get to keep enjoying what I am doing. The red ball is one format where I feel a lot more confident about myself and about my skills,” he said in an interaction with the media at the venue ahead of the match.
“I am at a stage where I am not as bothered as before about not being picked. I am 30, I'm not old enough to not be picked. I am not worried about ‘what if I am not picked’. I used to be in the past, but not anymore.”
That the pandemic struck less than a week after he lifted the Ranji Trophy didn't work well for him either. He had in fact been told that were it not for significant pandemic-era travel restrictions, he would have made the squad. So, what drives him? What’s the motivation behind turning up to the ground and bowling all day in a first-class match?
For Unadkat, it comes from the place where he hails from. Running in and delivering ball after ball and taking wickets in conditions that are seldom helpful for fast bowlers at Rajkot has steeled his nerves.
"I played all my life on wickets that haven't always been supportive enough for the fast bowler. So now, (I have) to go through the grind," he says.
"Keeping finding ways to take those wickets is something that I've been doing since the start of my career and that's my biggest motivation. I get more motivated when I see that the surface is flat… supporting the batters more than the bowlers. Maybe, that's because of the place where I come from.”
Unadkat played his only Test in 2010, at 19, after his first Ranji season. Although in hindsight he feels that it happened a tad too early. It did not help him that the Indian batting crumbled on day one. With experience, he has only gotten better.
As for his goals for the upcoming zonal tournament, it is all about getting into a rhythm and proving at a level that’s between Ranji Trophy and the national team ahead of a full-fledged domestic season.
The left-arm pacer first played for West Zone a month after his India debut in 2011 along with the current West Zone captain Ajinkya Rahane. “Both of us have had the opportunity to play for the zone in the past and we’d like to carry forward from there and get the tournament up and kicking,” he signed off.