Jayant Yadav

Primarily an off-spinner of the traditional mold, Jayant Yadav ground it out at the first-class level to make a name for himself as one of the most consistent performers in domestic cricket. Apart from his bowling, Jayant Yadav is also a very capable batsman lower down the order. 

As a 21-year-old, Jayant made his first-class debut against Gujarat in 2011 and took six wickets in Haryana’s impressive win. After having a quiet end to that season, he hit the headlines a year by scoring 211 runs against Karnataka which was also incidentally his first hundred at the first-class level. This knock came as part of a 392-run partnership with Amit Mishra. 

In November 2012, Jayant Yadav took five wickets in a 4-day match against the visiting English team. Those five wickets included the prized scalps of Alastair Cook, Matt Prior, and Kevin Pietersen. The off-spinning all-rounder had his best domestic season in 2014-15 by producing 330 runs and 33 wickets. The Indian selectors rewarded him with a place in India A squad for the first-class matches against South Africa A and Bangladesh A. 

Jayant built on the momentum with a decent 2015-16 Ranji Trophy campaign with both bat and ball. After contributing 298 runs and 19 wickets in the Ranji Trophy, Jayant did well with the ball in the Vijay Hazare Trophy too. Then, he helped the Rest of India side defeat Mumbai in the Irani Cup by picking up eight wickets in the match. These performances earned the Delhi-born spinner a call-up to the Indian ODI squad for the tour of Zimbabwe. Although he didn’t play a game on that tour, the ODI debut came a few months later against New Zealand. Jayant did do well in that game by registering figures of 4-0-8-1 but he hasn’t played another game in the 50-overs format due to the emergence of wrist spinners.

He was then selected for the home Test series against England. Jayant didn’t have to wait too long for a Test cap too as he made his debut in the 2nd Test match at Visakhapatnam. With India dominating England, Jayant too joined in the fun and produced 62 runs and four wickets in the match. In the next Test match at Mohali, he made his first Test fifty in the first innings. Yet again, Jayant picked four wickets in this match too. Jayant’s third and the fourth Test of that series didn’t go with the ball but he did bring up a maiden century. A few months later, he then played the Pune Test against Australia but hasn’t made an appearance in the whites since then.

In terms of the IPL, Jayant made his debut for the Delhi Daredevils against Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2015. After representing the Delhi franchise on ten occasions over a period of four years, Jayant was acquired by Mumbai Indians ahead of the 2019 IPL season. He will look to continue doing well in domestic cricket and also the IPL so as to get into the Indian team once again if the opportunity props up.