Plan was to bowl maidens: Umesh Yadav

Fast bowler Umesh Yadav, who took four wickets in the first innings to help India enforce the follow-on, said considering the slow nature of the pitch, bowling as many maiden overs as possible was their plan to create pressure on the West Indies’ batsmen.

The West Indies were bowled out for 243 in their first innings in response to India’s 566/8 declared and then were asked to follow-on. At stumps on the third day of the first Test, the hosts finished at 21/1. Incidentally, of the 103.2 overs India had bowled to West Indies so far in the Antigua Test, 34 have been maidens.

“It is all about planning. Before the game we planned about bowling as many maiden overs as possible and frustrate the batsmen. We didn’t want to give them easy runs and we stuck to our plan, and the results came,” Yadav said at the post day’s press conference on Saturday night.

“On such wickets a lot of hard work is needed and you need to hold on to half chances.

“If we don’t, then wickets won’t come and it would be difficult to take 20 wickets, as the pitch would slow down even more. So the plan was to be consistent and bowl maiden overs, and force the batsmen into playing bad shots,” he added.