Posted by The second Test is progressing pretty much as you’d imagine, so this is what we’re passing off as insight today: India’s new off-spinner Jayant Yadav seems a decent sort.
We’re basing this exclusively on one interview with Sky Sports’ Ian Ward. This may be misleading because Ward’s genial curiosity does seem to get the best out of people. But even so, Yadav seemed cheery and thoughtful, which is never a bad combination in an interviewee.
He gave considered, informative answers which were underpinned by the kind of slightly giddy, faintly intoxicated demeanour which Ward himself always seems to project. We won’t go into specifics. He just had a likeable air about him and that is pretty much the full extent of the point we’ve seen fit to put forward today.
Yadav’s cricket seems half-decent too. He got a few runs, took a wicket and secured the run-out of Haseeb Hameed with the kind of turn and throw that England could have done with producing at some point during their 129.3 overs of first innings toil in the field.
This article may feel worthless and irrelevant right now, but it’s worth noting that this is just the kind of flimsy basis on which most of our cricketing obsessions are born. In years to come, you may be able say that you were here when we first started boring people with this particular hobby horse.
Okay, obviously he’s not going to be another Rob Key, but he could become a Mominul Haque or Neil Wagner kind of figure. To a great extent it’ll depend on how much he gets to play. There’s a chance he could just be the next Burt Cockley.
Carl Hooper is nicer though.
Cook’s a nice bloke too.
Is Jayant Yadav from the right sort of family?
Never mind “the next Burt Cockley”.
Could Jayant Yadav be Prince Prefab’s next Rodney Redmond?
http://www.kingcricket.co.uk/i-dont-like-cricket-i-hate-it/2016/08/19/
The Prefabster has been pretty quiet around here of late, KC, which might explain why some folk are (mistakenly) starting to doubt his existence.
Who is going to be the next Rob Key? I mean, I know that it’s still too soon and that the old feelings still linger, but at some point another might come along who will be just as important to you. Not a replacement, but a continuation.
Perhaps it would help if you treated this website like a dating site. Set out your criteria and see who best matches up. Will it be Umesh Yadav? Or will it be Colin de Grandhomme? Or will it be some as yet anonymous young thing with a penchant for pies and a fear of the gym?
With these matches starting around 11 p.m. here, it’s often been hard for me to stay awake while watching. So the other night, I was just dozing off when I heard the commentators talking about a “Giant Yadav,” and, in that odd half-dreaming state of mind, decided it probably meant Umesh Yadav had grown a foot and a half.
Indeed, Dan. Daisy just made a similar mistake. The conversation went as follows:
DAISY: Who is that fellow?
GED: Jayant Yadav…spinner…the other Yadav.
DAISY: He doesn’t look THAT big to me – he’s about the same size as Ashwin.
I thought this almost up there with her “Sir Alf Ganguly” assumption back in days of yore.
At least you can blame your late night dozy state, Dan M. The conversation with Daisy was around 8:30 am, the sort of time when, in theory, she and I are at our best.
Sir Alf Ganguly is brilliant, the kind of brilliance that probably couldn’t have been made up deliberately but only by happy accident.