RCB Not Overdependent On Virat Kohli And AB de Villiers: Umesh Yadav

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) seamer Umesh Yadav will lead the fast bowling attack for the franchise in the upcoming edition. Umesh will partner with the likes of Navdeep Saini, Chris Morris, Dale Steyn, and Mohammad Siraj. While their pace attack has always been a point of concern and centred around their batting, the right-arm speedster has asserted their side is not over-reliant on Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers.

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Skipper Virat Kohli and the South African recruit AB de Villiers are the mainstay of their batting line-up and scored a bucketful of runs in history. With 5412 runs, Kohli is the leading run-getter while De Villiers has 3274 runs. The pair have also shared several match-winning partnerships; however, the rest of the batsmen have rarely stepped up.

Umesh Yadav admits that Kohli and De Villiers have won them numerous amount of games as well and will say the entire team depends on them. The pacer reminded that in the previous edition’s final match, Gurkeerat Mann and Shimron Hetmyer won it; hence, he denied the accusation. The Vidharba seamer added that while Virat and AB do a tad more than others; however, others contribute too.

“People will say we rely on them, they have won us numerous games as well. But if you see last year’s final match, Gurkeerat Mann and Shimron Hetmyer won us the match so obviously we don’t only rely on 2 players.

“There are 11 players in the team, if we only rely on 2 batsmen then why will the others play? Everybody contributes in the team, AB and Virat do a little more than others that’s fine, but they are doing their best which is good for the team,” Umesh Yadav told India Today.

It is important to keep yourself on top: Umesh Yadav

The 32-year-old opened up on the aspect of playing in empty stadiums, conceding that he has experienced the same while playing in the Ranji Trophy. Hence, he reveals being used to it and tells that it shouldn’t be a problem. Umesh Yadav added that a team must keep themselves cheered up to win games even without fans.

“I haven’t experienced that here till now but I have played a lot of Ranji Trophy matches in empty stadiums so I know how it feels, I’m ready for that. I’m coming here after playing quite a few Ranji games so I know how to cheer myself up when playing in an empty stadium.

“It is important to keep yourself on top. That will be very important, how a team keeps itself on top despite playing without any support from the fans,” he added.

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