Part Shamar, part Bopanna: Gourav Yadav finds second wind with Pondicherry

Drawing inspiration from the ageless Rohan Bopanna, the 32-year-old Gourav Yadav, whose origin mirrors Caribbean pacer Shamar Joseph, is making his way in Indian domestic cricket with Pondicherry.

Pondicherry’s Gourav Yadav in action during the ongoing Ranji Trophy season. | Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR/The Hindu

In a week where Shamar Joseph’s youthful exuberance and Rohan Bopanna’s age-defying perseverance dominated sporting headlines, Pondicherry fast bowler Gourav Yadav, whose career is a mélange of both storylines, continued his domination in the wickets-takers chart of the ongoing Ranji Trophy.

At the age of 32, with 31 wickets in seven innings, Gourav feels his career is finally peaking and takes inspiration from 43-year-old Bopanna’s Australian Open triumph.

“ Thirty-two kya hota hai? Aapne Rohan Bopanna ko dekha na. At the age of 43, he is world number one. I can still play for another six to seven years with full intensity,” he says during Pondicherry’s match against Madhya Pradesh, where he added another eight scalps to his tally.

His origins, meanwhile, mirror those of Joseph, who worked as a security guard till the age of about 21 and who, until 12 months ago, would have dismissed his place in cricketing folklore as a pipedream.

Gourav, who hails from Bisoni Kilan, a small village of about 1200 to 1500 people in Madhya Pradesh, had never played with a leather ball till he was about 19 or 20.

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“I used to play tennis-ball cricket in school and college. One day, the older boys told me that I bowl fast and that I should take a shot at bowling with a leather ball. I got myself admitted into a club in Bhopal and played there for about six to seven months. I was bowling quick with the leather ball too and received a lot of praise,” he says.

With Indore being the epicentre of cricketing activity in MP, Gourav soon had to relocate from Bhopal.

“I went to Indore and played club cricket there. My village is in the Hoshangabad division, which is called Narmadapuram now. Someone asked me to play division cricket in Hoshangabad. From there, within two years, I came into the Ranji Trophy team. I was 22 or 23 [21] at the time,” he adds.

Though Gourav made his First-Class debut in 2012 against Gujarat in Indore, he got limited opportunities in his first four to five years on the domestic circuit, largely due to a slew of injuries that were in many ways the result of a late initiation into the game.

“I had a lot of injury issues initially. I would toil so hard in practice that I had no energy left after it. There was no time for my body to recover fully. Because I started playing so late, I was trying to compensate for it by bowling as much within two years as someone would have bowled in five years. That led to a lot of injuries, which set my career back a little bit,” he says.

“MPCA (Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association) rated me so highly that the moment I was fit, they would select me after just a couple of selection matches... I could never play a full season. It’s only since the last two seasons that I have been playing regularly,” he adds.

For Gourav, playing the Ranji Trophy wasn’t only about pursuing his passion but also about proving a point and winning over his father, who was sceptical of his son’s late entry into a sport that millions in the country aspire to play.

“I asked my father to give me two years to pursue cricket and I promised him that if I fail, I will never play the sport again. ‘ Main kabhi bat-ball nahi uthaunga’,” he reminisces.

When his father would fret over his future in case his plans went awry, Gourav would assure him that he had no qualms about returning to his roots.

“ Aap bhi toh kheti karke hummein paal rahe ho. Main bhi kheti kar lunga, usmein kya burai hai. (You have raised us with the income you got from farming. I will do the same. There’s no harm in doing that),” he would tell his father.

But once Gourav made his entry into First-Class cricket and his name began appearing in the papers, his father was convinced and never disapproved of his son’s choices again.

Gourav made another enterprising decision ahead of the 2023-24 season when he quit MP to play for Pondicherry. Though he was a mainstay in red-ball cricket and an integral part of MP’s Ranji Trophy title triumph in 2021-22, Gourav was rueing the lack of opportunities in limited-overs formats.

In more than 10 years with the MP team, he had featured in only 16 List A and nine T20 games despite showing promise in both formats.

“I wanted more opportunities in white-ball cricket. I was playing red-ball cricket consistently but chances in white-ball cricket were few and far between. I was the highest wicket-taker in the Vijay Hazare Trophy [2019-20] for MP, but still, I didn’t get too many opportunities in white-ball cricket,” he explains.

What also irked Gourav and stalled his progress was MPCA’s repeated refusal to allow him to attend trials and net sessions of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises.

“I wasn’t allowed to attend trials on two or three occasions. CSK (Chennai Super Kings) had called me as a net bowler and they were going to take me to UAE, but they [MPCA] didn’t allow me to attend the trials or even go there as a net bowler. And neither were they giving me chances in white-ball cricket, so I had no other option,” he tells  Sportstar.

Gourav could finally attend the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) camp last year as a net bowler, where he dismissed Virat Kohli on a couple of occasions on the first day.

“Virat Kohli came up to me and said, ‘ Kahan se hai tu, bahut tagdi bowling kar raha hai. (Where are you from? You are bowling really well)‘,” he recounts gleefully.

In his first full white-ball season since 2019-20, Gourav emerged as Pondicherry’s leading wicket-taker in the Vijay Hazare Trophy last year, picking 14 scalps in seven games.

In the Ranji Trophy, he inspired Pondicherry’s wins against more fancied sides such as Delhi and Uttarakhand before facing defeat against his former side MP on Sunday.

Pondicherry’s Gourav Yadav celebrates after getting a wicket of Delhi’s Kshitiz Sharma during the 2nd day of Ranji Trophy cricket match between Delhi and Pondicherry. | Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

However, Gourav believes the team, which is only five First-Class seasons old, has got what it takes to qualify for the knockouts. 

Although minute in the global context, that story would well be in keeping with the pacer’s odds-defying journey and the sporting world’s giant-killing mood of late.