Jadeja is bowling at his best and is getting rewards for that: Umesh

Umesh Yadav toiled hard on an unresponsive pitch to bag three wickets and the paceman spoke of the surface, the difficulty of bowling to someone like Steven Smith, who made an unbeaten 178, and Virat Kohli’s injury status. Excerpts:

On the nature of the pitch: For now, I don’t foresee much change but still hope for the best. If there is some change, it’s good but for now, as you can see, it still is good for batting.

On the difficulty of bowling to Smith: Actually, it can be quite difficult. Your thinking, your plans, you know you have to bowl in a certain way but sometimes when he keeps moving — moves from leg to off and opens up — then it becomes a bit difficult. Your plans are no longer effective. So you have to wait till the last minute, depending on how much he moves, before deciding what to do.

On Kohli’s status (he had bandage on): The bandage will obviously be there because if you have a shoulder injury, you need the bandage to hold it together but he is ready to come. He has been batting in the nets as well, so obviously he will come back.

On whether 450 is a par score: On this wicket, it is very difficult to stop singles. 450 has taken them four and a half sessions to get, an average of 100 runs per session.

We also made 120 in one session. On this pitch, it is hard to stem the flow of runs because it isn’t as easy to bowl as you might think because the singles will keep coming and the outfield is so quick that once it is in the gap, it will go to the boundary. 450 is there and thereabouts, 20-30 this side or that.

On Ravindra Jadeja’s bowling: I think he is bowling at his best and is getting rewards for that. He has got a lot of five-wicket hauls in recent times. Jadeja is the kind of bowler whose bowling style suits any type of wicket. His variations and his control are very good. If he gets even a bit of rough, he knows what his aim is, where he has to bowl.
DH News Service