The veteran speedster has 453 wickets at 23.02 runs apiece in 221 First Class innings.
India speedster Jaydev Unadkat bowled brilliantly in the County Championship 2025 fixture between Sussex and Yorkshire in Hove. He was Sussex’s best bowler in the first innings, showing his class and skills he honed by toiling for years in the domestic circuit.
Unadkat snared three wickets while conceding only 36 runs in his 16-over spell, comprising as many as five maidens. He dismissed big batters during his run, including Indian batter Mayank Agarwal (26), Jonny Bairstow (2), and Matthew Revis (1).
After a fine start, Yorkshire lost the plot as their batters fell in regular intervals, and Unadkat was pivotal since he dismissed the biggest ones. He started by removing the captain, Bairstow, with a ripper that held its angle and formed a gap between the batter’s bat and pads.
In his next over, the left-arm pacer dismissed Revis to trigger a collapse before eventually getting Agarwal in one of his later spells to bundle Yorkshire on a mere 194. Unadkat and FJ Hudson-Prentice got three wickets each; the former was more economical and scalped better batters to help Sussex make a strong comeback when the opponent looked set to post a substantial first-innings score.
Few bowlers have been as unlucky as Jaydev Unadkat, who always had immense potential and still remains one of the best domestic performers. The veteran speedster has 453 wickets at 23.02 runs apiece in 221 First Class innings, with as many as 24 five-wicket and five ten-wicket hauls.
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Following impressive performances in U-19 and India A games, he made his Test debut in 2010 at the age of 18 but went wicketless while conceding 101 and remained out of the Test side for 12 long years. Another chance came in 2022 on the Bangladesh tour, where Unadkat showcased the experience he earned by scalping three wickets across two innings.
That opened the way for two more matches in the West Indies, and he remained wicketless in both, with selectors looking past him. While he was with the Indian squad in a few series, Unadkat never really had ample backing and will always remain a what-if case.
The worst part is that he never got to play on Indian surfaces, where his record is fabulous, in his brief Test career, with all four matches away, three of them outside Asia. He is now 33, and the Indian side is giving exposure to fresh faces like Anshul Kamboj, Akash Deep, and Prasidh Krishna in the longest format, suggesting Unadkat might have played his last game for India already.
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