Arjun Yadav takes
the stump out and Rayudu takes his bat out!
By
BV Swagath, published on Dec 5, 2005
Tension prevailed at the Rural Trust Development
Stadium in Ananthapur during the course of the
last day of the Elite Ranji Trophy match between
Andhra and Hyderabad. Ambati Tirupati Rayudu,
the dashing middle order batsman was attacked by
a stump by rival Hyderabad Captain Arjun Yadav
who is also son of
former International Cricketer
Shivlal Yadav.
According to a source at the
ground, Rayudu’s wicket was followed with some
sarcastic comments from some Hyderabad
Cricketers and in particular skipper Arjun Yadav.
Rayudu who felt insulted by those comments
immediately told Arjun Yadav straight on his
face that he (Arjun Yadav) was in the Hyderabad
side only because of his father Shivlal Yadav's
influence and had he not been Shivlal’s son then
things would have been something else for Arjun.
Arjun Yadav got heated up with these comments
from Rayudu and the former took out a stump to
attack Rayudu. Rayudu was ready with his bat to
defend the attacker. Rayudu has always been the
crowd's darling whether he was playing for
Hyderabad or Andhra. The agitated Rayalseema
crowd after witnessing the unruly actions in the
middle started to hurl stones at the Hyderabad
players and it was only after police
intervention that the crowd was stopped from
doing so! With a heavy police cover, players of
both sides were taken off to the Railway Station
safely. Never mess up in the faction
region of Ananthapur folks!
It is believed that Rayudu had been getting lots
of comments from the Hyderabad fielders during
his stay at the wicket in his two innings.
Rayudu failed in the first innings getting out
to 20 when he was stumped by Keeper Ibrahim
Khaleel off left arm spinner Pragyan Ojha.
Andhra made 231 falling way short of Hyderabad’s
1st innings total of 370. Things changed
dramatically in the 2nd innings as the new ball
pair of Sahabuddin and Kalyankrishna ran through
the Hyderabad side dismissing them for a paltry
80. Sahabuddin picked up 7 wickets. Andhra
required just 220 runs to win inspite of giving
away a huge first innings lead. A charged up
Hyderabad side then fought back hard by
removing the first four wickets of Andhra for
just 67 runs which included the prized wicket of
skipper Venugopal Rao. This is where Rayudu got
a partnership going on with Suresh and the
attacking Rayudu just punished the bowlers
mercilessly. With 5 fours and 1 six, he raced
onto a rapid half century and he was finally
done in once again by Ojha. And that is when
trouble erupted as the two - Arjun and Rayudu got
involved in a heated moment. The Hyderabad
players and the umpires managed to pull Arjun
Yadav away and Rayudu had finally gone back to
the pavilion and play resumed for a while before
eventually ending into a draw.
Rayudu who at one stage was considered as an
upcoming ‘Sachin Tendulkar’ had an indifferent
season last year without even crossing a fifty
for Hyderabad. This season, Rayudu along with
opening bat Tirumalsetti Suman has moved to
Andhra after taking a no-objection certificate
from the Hyderabad Cricket Association. Rumours
spread wide across Hyderabad that the pair had
moved out only because of the trouble caused by
Arjun Yadav. It is however not clear what
exactly the problem was. Those rumours seemed to
be true looking at the incidents that took place
yesterday.
Things were fine for Hyderabad as long as a
veteran in Venkatapathy Raju was leading the
side until the Ranji Trophy match against Uttar
Pradesh last year. Raju announced his retirement
during the course of the match and the Hyderabad
players won the game for him with a spirited
bowling performance inspite of defending a
target of a little over 140. After Raju’s exit,
captaincy straight away went to Arjun Yadav
inspite of the presence of few deserving senior
players. Arjun Yadav who has just managed an
average of around 25.00 in first class cricket
and a List A average of under 20.00 had made it
to the Elite B and the South Zone teams in the
Duleep Trophy matches previously and once even
played the Challenger Trophy for India B in
2001/02 at Bangalore after just two seasons
after making his debut. Lucky bloke is Arjun
Yadav certainly! He no doubt has the talent, the
Junior Yadav had began his Under 19 Cricket for
Hyderabad with a bang scoring hundreds on the
trot but his transition into first class cricket
has been a major disappointment. In an
interview
with this website, Shivlal spoke about his son
as follows "I would have been happy had Arjun gone little
higher in the level he’s playing at the moment
now. The way he had shown the promise during his
U19 days, he hasn’t met the expectations at this
level. Unfortunately he has been having some
injuries, like last year he had a severe back
injury, he broke his finger and all this was in
the middle of the season. So he had his
setbacks. Let’s see if he can comeback from them
and perform because ultimately if you want to
play the higher grade of cricket, you got to
attract the selectors through your performances
and there’s no other substitute for that."
Interestingly both Rayudu and Arjun Yadav have
played for India at the Under 19 level and both
have the chance of making it to the Indian team,
their conduct needs to be strictly checked by
the BCCI at this stage! The road is pretty
smooth for the 23 year old Arjun as his ‘papa’
Shivlal has just been named as the Director of
the National Cricket Academy! Rayudu on the
other hand has just got to make his bat do the
talking and make people believe that comparisons
of Rayudu with Sachin Tendulkar are no media
hype. The former India U19 Captain of course has
to seriously cut down on the amount of shots he
plays when he’s new to the crease, he just gotta
control his adrenalin and he needs to learn a
lot from Viru (Virender
Sehwag) who has hit those big
hundreds for India at the Test level.
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