When batter Jayant got obsessed with bowling

Haryana all-rounder feels he didn't live up to his batting potential

It was nearly evening on December 23, 2012, when Jayant Yadav walked behind Amit Mishra and towards the pavilion at Hubballi with a smile on his face.

Karnataka had used up ten bowlers in an effort to get rid of the seventh-wicket alliance. Instead, Mishra and the No 9 Jayant scored double-centuries each before Haryana declared their innings with the alliance yielding 392 runs.

The match eventually ended in a draw, but anyone watching could tell that the then 20-something-year-old Jayant had a natural ability with the bat. In the same match, he bowled a mere three overs for 20 runs. Jayant didn’t pay heed.

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“I don’t think I lived up to my batting potential,” he says while seated at a Duleep Trophy press conference as the captain of the North Zone team. “I don’t say that as a thing where I have run out of time. It’s just that not everything in your career will go according to how you have planned it. I think somewhere down the line, I feel like I could have worked more on my batting.

“I just happened to be a batsman. I was so obsessed with bowling, and I still am, that sometimes, I would get my batting gear, but I would get so hooked on bowling that I would forget about batting. I get lost in trying to work on my bowling and I end up neglecting batting. Now, I bat for ten minutes at least.”

Perhaps 2,593 runs from 74 first-class games at an average of 25.93 weren't enough to inspire Jayant to take up batting more seriously. Maybe, 201 wickets from the same set of games meant more to him.

That said, in the six Tests he has played for India, he averages 31 and has a century against England at the Wankhede in 2016. He has picked up 16 wickets at the same time.

“Yeah, yeah, 100 per cent,” he says when asked if he reckoned himself more a bowler than a batter even after the century.

“See, that bowling/batting all-rounder tag is from the outside. As a player, when you play in the 11, you either get picked as a batter, a bowler or an all-rounder. It just so happens that if you score more runs, you’ll be called a batting all-rounder and when you bowl well, you’re a bowling all-rounder. That’s very stereotypical, according to me.

"Over time, a lot has been written about Jayant Yadav as a better batsman than a bowler, and that’s fine, but I stand by what I feel like I want to do.”

Maybe so, but he hasn’t played for India since 2016 and has played a mere 20 games in the Indian Premier League.

Even now, Jayant will be spotted in squads, in preparatory camps, as a net bowler, or will come in as an injury replacement, but the odds of him actually representing India again look bleak.

His bowling, perhaps, is far too tweaked for success. His batting, however, is a thing of natural elegance.

If only he had built on that knock in Hubballi, or that Test century against England, he may not be yawning at mid-off while playing the North East Zone at the M Chinnaswamy stadium.