IPL: All-time flop XI in the tournament history

9. Umesh Yadav

Umesh Yadav and his IPL journey have mainly been a story of adversity and storms. At one point just before the 2015 World Cup, the pacer was hailed as India’s eminent speedster. But with the emergence of the top three (Bhuvi, Shami & Bumrah) the speedster is hardly in the reckoning now for the white-ball format. However, in the IPL the story actually becomes much more deceiving. In his eventful IPL career, Umesh has mainly represented three IPL franchises (KKR, RCB & DC).

Although Yadav was bought by the Delhi franchise back in 2008, the speedster played his first IPL season back in 2010. In the 2012 season where the Delhi franchise had a robust IPL year, Yadav with his express bowling had finished as the overall fourth-highest wicket-taker, picking 19 wickets from 17 games. During the 2014 auction, the pacer found a new franchise and played for KKR till 2017. Over there, Umesh became an established member and in his four-year stint, Yadav played a total of 47 games and took 48 wickets, bowling at an economy of around 8.6. However, in the IPL 2018, Umesh got bagged by the red army, wherein in his initial season, he took a total of 20 wickets from his 14 games.

Now regardless of having some good numbers, Yadav in the IPL 2019 could only fetch 8 wickets in that season along with his rising economy of almost 10. In the last season, Umesh in his initial two matches had a disappointing outing regardless of fetching a single wicket, the pacer leaked runs at an economy of more than 11. Overall, Yadav in his strenuous IPL career has played 121 matches and has taken 119 wickets. But with his reasonable success in the wickets tally, Umesh in his last few IPL years has been leaking runs around at an economy of 10. Therefore, there’s hardly any doubt that this strong man has been a rusty commodity for the last few years of his IPL career.