That final leap, the single last effort you put all of yourself into, to obtain something you desperately want. The moment you forget about the future, your past blurs into darkness, and all you can see is the ‘Now’. It is an incredible state of being, in which a person discovers his true potential. Umesh Yadav was in that state when Virat Kohli lobbed him the ball to send down the first over after tea on the final day of the Delhi Test. The South Africans were in the middle of a blockathon, using their bats as shields rather than swords. India needed five wickets in the final session to win the Test, and take the series 3-0. Batsmen at the crease were AB de Villiers and Dane Vilas – South Africa’s last recognised batting pair. One wicket and the Indians would be bowling to the tail. One wicket would crack the door open for them to barge in and go for the kill. And Umesh Yadav decided that he would be the one to get his team that wicket. “I told myself that this is the last Test match I am going to play for the next six months,” Umesh told BCCI.TV.”And this moment – the chance to beat South Africa 3-0 by winning a Test like this – will never come back again. I knew that one wicket would open things up for us. All I wanted was that one wicket.” And he got that wicket. The fifth ball post tea – a sharp in-cutter – swung a bit too late for Vilas to put his bat down in time. He ended up edging it on to his stumps. Umesh had opened the door wide open. “It was my last spell of the series and I said, ‘If I do something special here, it will be a moment to remember for me and the team’. I decided to give all that I had in that spell. I ran hard and bowled as fast as I could. I got that wicket and the effort paid off.” Umesh’s job wasn’t done yet. What followed was another three overs of pace, swing, some scorching full deliveries and a few rising ones – all of that on a pitch as moribund as a planet outside the goldilocks zone. In his next two overs he got Kyle Abbott and Dane Piedt respectively. Abbott’s leg-stump was broken into two by a quick, full, late in-swinger. Piedt was stunned by another incoming delivery, short of length, ricocheting off the top of his bat, caught by an air-borne Wriddhiman Saha behind the stumps, diving to his right. It was the late reverse swing that bamboozled the batsmen. And Umesh had come with a plan to make that happen. “We had a word in the dressing room during the tea break that it won’t be a bad idea to bowl with a slingy action, because it would help me swing the ball more,” Umesh revealed. “I tried it and it worked – I got the ball to reverse more than usual because of that action. Also, since it was swinging late, the batsmen were confused whether it would come in or go away.” Umesh’s last spell of the Test read like this: 6-6-0-3. His innings bowling figures: 21-16-9-3. The batsmen’s total disinterest in scoring runs notwithstanding, those are the numbers any fast bowler would be proud of. For Umesh they meant more. “Throughout my Test career, I have played a match here or a couple there; never really had a few games at the stretch. But after this spell, my confidence has gone really high. I felt that whatever I have learnt so far, whether while playing Test cricket or going back to domestic cricket, I could make it count in this spell.” He did make it count. India won the Test by 337 runs. And the series was taken 3-0.