Zak has taught me to read batsman’s mind: Unadkat

Jaydev Unadkat, who has earned a recall into the Indian squad for the tour of Zimbabwe, is thankful to Zaheer Khan for helping him improve as a cricketer during his stint with the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the sixth edition of IPL. ‘Zak (Zaheer) had a big role to play during the last season of IPL. 

I believe that his contribution to my improvement as a cricketer has been immense. He would devote extra time on me at the nets. Having variations is not all. Zak taught me how and when to use variations. He told me ways to read a batsman’s mind which is very important,’ Unadkat said. 

The other aspect that has helped him is being a part of an extremely strong Saurashtra squad that has likes of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja in it. ‘You look at the amount of runs that Cheteshwar and Jadeja have scored in Ranji Trophy. 

Once you regularly bowl to a batsman of Cheteshwar’s calibre at nets, it automatically improves you. Both him and Jaddu have done well at the highest level and they would tell me about where I needed to improve.