Ranji Trophy Final | Yash Thakur recalls looking up to ‘bedrock’ Umesh

Yash Thakur, protege of Umesh Yadav, shines in Ranji Trophy final, leading Vidarbha to bowl out Mumbai.

For five years, Yash Thakur has been groomed as Umesh Yadav’s understudy. On Sunday, playing his maiden Ranji Trophy final, Yash, the protege, overshadowed the master to help Vidarbha bowl Mumbai out for 224.

Yash, bowling first-change, broke the 81-run opening stand with a fuller one that jagged away to kiss opener Bhupen Lalwani’s edge and rested in Akshay Wadkar’s gloves. He came back after lunch to break the back of Mumbai’s lower-order, dismissing Shams Mulani and Tanush Kotian.

With Umesh being around the team for almost the whole season, the likes of Yash, Aditya Thakare and Darshan Nalkande have excelled in his tutelage. But Yash cannot forget the first time he met him, at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Academy in Nagpur during his under-16 days.

“After being selected for a camp, my first day at the VCA Academy, I met Umesh bhaiya in person,” Yash had told The Hindu earlier in the season. “I was in awe of him and wanted to follow into his footsteps by going on to play for India. But the first big dream was to bowl like him and bowl in tandem with him just once.”

While Yash refers to him as a “bedrock” of the Vidarbha unit, more than heaping praise on Umesh, Yash remembers an incident during the first time he bowled along with Umesh, during Vidarbha’s Ranji semifinal against Kerala in 2018-19 on a “terrible” pitch at Wayanad.

“We ran through them on the first side, he was unplayable but I went wicketless,” Yash recalled. “He walked up to me, reminded me the game is not over and told me to back myself. It helped and I picked four in the next match. Since then, every time I bowl when he is around, he is always at mid-off, egging me and the others on.”

Had it not been for former Vidarbha captain and coach Praveen Hinganikar, however, Yash would have continued to emulate his idol and kept on keeping wickets.