For a 20-year-old playing only his third first-class game, Lalit Yadav showed no sign of nerves on Saturday. The Vidarbha medium-pacer bothered a strong Karnataka side no end with his control and accuracy, to finish with figures of five for 67. Although cramps had forced him off the field for 40 minutes in the afternoon, Lalit returned to claim his maiden five-wicket haul in the Ranji Trophy.
“It was a helpful wicket. The ball was moving off the seam; it was also shooting off the pitch sometimes,” he said later. “I don’t swing the ball much but I get it to move off the seam. So at times, it was both moving sideways and flying off the pitch. I just put it in the right areas.”
Lalit was disappointed, though, that Karnataka had been let off the hook. “We could have restricted them to 170 or so,” he said. “We spread the field a bit, and the last pair was getting easy runs. They batted well too.”
Karnataka’s batsmen may have arrived with big reputations, but he had not felt under pressure, Lalit said. “My gaze never travels up to a batsman’s face; who he is is not my issue. All I do is bowl hard.”
