Jaydev Unadkat

Jaydev Unadkat first burst onto the scene with impressive spells in the U-19 World Cup in 2010 and later that year was also called up to India’s Test team on the tour of South Africa, after impressing the best in business Sachin Tendulkar. 

In the absence of the spearhead Zaheer Khan, Unadkat was handed a debut in Centurion but could not fulfill the expectations. He was not up to the mark and was subsequently dropped from the squad to never come back again in the white jersey for the Indian team. 

Although consistent performances in the domestic List-As and T20s helped him get a spot in the Indian white-ball side. Unadkat was selected for India's tour of Zimbabwe in 2016 but could not manage to secure his place in the team for a long time and was in and out based on the availability of the first-choice players.

Over the years, the southpaw has been part of half of the dozen franchises. A young and fresh Unadkat straight from the U-19 oven came Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2010 where he worked with the greatest left-arm bowler Wasim Akram, before shifting to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for USD 525000. At Bangalore, Jaydev got his first long-run where he played 13 games and took the same number of wickets at an economy rate of 7.55. He then migrated to Delhi to play for Delhi Daredevils for the next two seasons. 

In 2016, he was again picked by the Kolkata-based franchise for a whopping amount of INR 1.6 crores. In the next season, he was picked by Rising Pune Supergiant, where he had great success under MS Dhoni’s guidance. The southpaw played a huge cog in his franchise’s road to the final. 

After the success with Pune, Unadkat drew INR 11.5 crore bid from the Rajasthan team but finished the season with only 11 wickets at a dismal economy rate of 9.65 runs per over. In the IPL 2019, he again disappointed picking up only 10 wickets with economy rate sliding further past 10 runs per over. 

Unadkat was in red-hot form in the Ranji Trophy 2019-20 for his domestic team Saurashtra and picked up 67 wickets and helped the team clinch the prestigious trophy for the first time in history. However, the subsequent IPL season was another disastrous tournament for him where the seamer could only pick 4 wickets in his 7 outings. After the very ordinary IPL season, the Rajasthan-based franchise has again persisted in Jaydev Unadkat for the 14th edition of IPL and it will possibly be the last chance for Unadkat to prove his credentials are worthy of the price he was paid for by the team.

(As of March 2021)