Jaydev Unadkat was only 19 years old and fresh out of a U19 World Cup when he was called up for the Indian team for their tour of South Africa in 2010. He made his Test debut in Centurion but couldn’t pick any wickets as Proteas won by an innings and 25 runs.
He was then forgotten in the Test arena though he played a handful of ODIs in 2013 and a few T20I matches in 2016-18.
However, in between those appearances for India, he turned into a domestic cricket giant. In 97 first-class matches, Unadkat took 356 wickets at an average of 23.04 and an economy rate of 2.94. His best bowling figures in FC cricket are 7/41.
He also has 1,759 runs in 126 innings at an average of 18.51, with seven fifties and the best score of 92.
However, he made a return to the Indian Test team in the second Test against Bangladesh in Dhaka and took 2/50 in the first innings and 1/17 in the second. In the low-scoring match, he also contributed with the bat scoring 14* and 13.
Unadkat took to social media on Tuesday to reflect on his over-a-decade-long journey in Test cricket while also posting his Test cap number 267.
The jerseys from 2010 feature many of India's retired stars like MS Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir, S Sreesanth, Suresh Raina, and Pragyan Ojha.
From that jersey, only Cheteshwar Pujara, Ishant Sharma, Murali Vijay, and Wriddhiman Saha have not announced their retirement. While new jersey has signs of stars like Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, Abhimanyu Easwaran, and KS Bharat.
It also has the sign of Virat Kohli, who hadn’t debuted for India in red-ball cricket when Unadkat played his first Test.
"To the journey of all those years in between.. #267 #TeamIndia," tweeted Unadkat.
