Over the past two years, India have earmarked Umesh as a Test bowler, only rarely using the pacer in their one-day plans. On the recent tour of South Africa, he slipped down the pecking order in the five-day game as well, with Virat Kohli preferring Test debutant Jasprit Bumrah over him.

But having joined Kohli in Bangalore for this year’s IPL, Umesh, coiffed in a new hair-do, showed old smarts and fire, brilliantly setting up a Punjab collapse. It started well for Punjab, with KL Rahul leading the charge at the M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru on Friday, April 13. Umesh then struck thrice in the fourth over to reduce them to 36-3.

“There’s a tag that I bowl well in Tests. In Tests, you have time, and if one has pace and your ball is swinging both ways, then you have that talent [of bowling in Test cricket],” Umesh pointed out. “In red-ball cricket, the chances of swinging the ball are more. But there’s no dislike for white-ball cricket.

“As a fast bowler, I want to play in all the three formats for the country because I like playing in all the three formats … I have been trying, whether the bowl is red or white, to bowl with the same accuracy, because when you bowl with a new ball, the length in all the three formats is the same.”