The IPL 2022 mega auction churned out 108 crorepatis. Only 13 of them were left-arm fast bowlers. Of them, just five were Indians. Four of them have played international cricket. And then there was just one uncapped left-arm pacer who landed a deal running in crores. The odd one to stand out was Uttar Pradesh’s Yash Dayal who has just entered the fourth year of his professional cricket career.
IPL newbie Gujarat Titans have taken a punt on Dayal as they splurged Rs 3.2 crore on him. There’re two more left-arm pacer in the squad – West Indian Dominic Drakes who has played international cricket. He was bought for Rs 1.1 crore. And Pradeep Sangwan who was picked at his base price of Rs 20 lakh.
The amount thrown at cricketers at an auction speak volumes of the faith franchises have in them. So how much Gujarat Titans rate Dayal? Well, he was their fourth costliest purchase at the two-day auction after Lockie Ferguson, Rahul Tewatia and Mohammed Shami. Talk about potential and expectations.
Yash, 24, has a combined experience of 33 matches at the professional level. Out of these, 15 are T20s in which the Allahabad-born has taken 15 wickets at an impressive average of 22.13.
The vast difference in his experience and the amount the youngster commanded would leave anyone a bit surprised. Well, so was Dayal.
But for the youngster, watching teams bid on his name alone was an achievement in itself. “Watching my name being bid upon was in itself a big achievement for me,” Yash told News18 Cricketnext during a chat facilitated by Gujarat Titans.
“It went quite high and I couldn’t believe what was going on. ‘Is this real or what?’. I was full of emotions. But I would like to clarify, I didn’t sleep nor did my father call me up. After the auction, my mother did call. They were quite emotional and happy,” he added.
Soon after he became an IPL crorepati, a story began doing the rounds in media of how Dayal missed the moment he was bought by Gujarat Titans as he was tired and decided to sleep. However, in Dayal’s words, that’s incorrect.
“Actually, this is not right. I don’t know who has circulated this. I was sitting with a friend and watching it with a friend. My friend has a clip of it. On the second day, around 3-4 pm (IST), my name came up for auction. Two players who came before me went unsold and so I became quite nervous. My friend was recording. I called my family they were also tensed. So, I told them once it’s done (auction), then I will video call them. Then I sat in front of the TV,” he recalled.
It’s in The Genes
Dayal’s father Chandarpal was a fast bowler himself who played in the Vizzy Trophy. However, the father never pressured his son into choosing a particular career path. “There was no pressure to focus on cricket or studies in particular,” Dayal said. “My father was a cricketer and so my background is in sports. It was kind of easy for me to play cricket since not everyone gets to have that background. My father has always tried to not burden me with expectations. It was left to me what career I want to push ahead with.”
Amazed and Shocked
It was before the Kanpur Test last year between India and New Zealand when his professional life started changing for good. Dayal was summoned as a practice bowler prior to the start of the Test. Earlier this year, the BCCI called him up as a backup after a covid outbreak in the Indian camp ahead of the West Indies ODI series in Ahmedabad.
“For the first five days (in Ahmedabad) I was in quarantine but on the practice day, I was sitting in the team bus. Then one by one all those players I’ve watched on TV began pouring in. Rohit bhaiyaVirat bhaiyaIshan Kishan, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav walked in. Couldn’t believe I’m sitting with them. I was kind of both shocked and amazed,” Yash recalls.
While he didn’t interact with India head coach Rahul Dravid a lot, he did bowl under the watchful gaze of bowling coach Paras Mhambrey.
“He (Dravid) just asked me to back myself. He was impressed with me but I mostly interacted with Mhambrey sir,” he said.
India Dreams
Since the retirement of the legendary Zaheer Khan, Indian team has gone through a host of left-arm pacers including Jaydev Unadkat, Barinder Sran, Khaleel Ahmed and more recently T Natarajan. None has managed to drop anchor and the hunt continues.
While the gaping hole does open up an opportunity, Dayal knows it’s a big challenge as well. “It’s a big opportunity but a challenge too. There have been several bowlers who have come up over the years… My focus is to set a different example and if I do get a chance, would want to stick there as long as possible. Fitness would require the maximum work,” he said.
Dayal gave a brief insight into the little adjustments he makes when switching formats. “In red-ball cricket, my aim is to bowl as many maiden overs as possible. In days cricket (red-ball), you can recover from a loose spell but in white-ball (T20s and one-dayers), it becomes tougher. That is one adjustment you have to make. Planning has to be done in advance regarding how to bowl at the start, middle overs and during slog overs. Bowling bouncers is my biggest strength. I do a lot of single-wicket practice,” he explained.
Dayal has been doing a lot of spot bowling as part of his preparations for IPL.
“My main focus (recently) was Ranji Trophy. I was practicing with the red-ball, Spot bowling has been the focus (now). For example, I am working on yorkers, bouncers so as the gain enough confidence that in match I won’t back out from using them,” he said.
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