Making his ODI comeback in the Asia Cup after a year out of the team, Jadeja reinforced his utility with thrifty bowling, improved batting and top-class fielding. (PTI Photo)
Sometimes, one doesn’t recognise the value of what one has. It’s been the story of Ravindra Jadeja’s career. When he didn’t play the first four Tests, a very senior member of England team management had an air of baffled relief about him. “We couldn’t believe our luck that he wasn’t playing. Our batsmen have always been troubled by his disciplined bowling and as he showed in the final game, he can bat pretty well. He is a fighter, isn’t he? I was surprised he didn’t play the ODIs as well, what’s going on?”
Despite what he has done for India over the years, true respect has eluded him. The perceptions about him were almost rooted at some distant stage in the past when he had yet to iron out his game. Before he became completely self-aware of his art. “Oh, he can’t win a match with his bat, can he even hit a six, or can he bowl outside India?” But sometimes, the outside world sees the reality more clearly without any baggage of the past. Like England team.
His dismissal of Ben Stokes in the final Test comes to the mind. It was a very full ball, too full to sweep but Stokes had pre-determined the shot and fell, unable to make any contact with the ball. At the outset it seemed a simple dismissal. Later, though, Jadeja revealed the thought behind it and why the wicket gave him great joy. He said he had taken out the square fielder on the on side, knew that Stokes would go for the sweep and was waiting to pick up any early cue. When Stokes shaped up for that shot, Jadeja just had to follow his preconceived plan and quickly slip the ball fuller. That it was a well-planned dismissal, that he had thought it out had made him joyous.
Some have wondered whether he was doing collateral damage in the push to get Ashwin out of the ODI team? It was as if his existence was hyphenated with Ashwin. It’s an interesting thought. Was he a casualty in that sense? The good thing is we don’t have to bank on hypothesis here, we have evidence to fall upon. The last year or so has proved that India’s decision to play two wrist spinners, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvindra Chahal, was the correct one. They have won games with their bowling.
In some ways, the pairing of Ashwin and Jadeja had become unidimensional. Yadav and Chahal proved to be more effective attacking options. Neither did they leak runs. Both have immense control over their art; Yadav’s left-arm wrist spin by its nature was attacking and as his mentor Brad Hogg has cried himself hoarse, his control is impeccable for someone so young. Never does he exude the feeling that he can be taken apart. Nor does he go into a shell when the batsmen try to attack him.
Chahal on the other hand is one of more wily little spinners out there: a brain that has developed on limited-overs cricket, a cricketing intelligence that sees him thrive when the batsmen try to hit him – in fact if anything it has been a reason he hasn’t cracked in the longer form as he is yet to prove he can be successful when the batsmen don’t go after him.
The way the new pair went about their job, not many could hand-wring over absences of Ashwin and Jadeja. Rarely has been a takeover so smooth and effective from the start. Now, Jadeja has managed to pull himself back in reckoning, raising questions again. Those who know him talk about his desperation in the last year when he was out of the ODI team. He worked hard at his batting; somewhere inside him was the belief that if he could develop his batting, he would find a way back in. He didn’t have much doubts about his bowling, they say.
Timely separation
In hindsight, after watching him with Ashwin and seeing him with the two other spinners in Asia Cup, it raises the question whether his decline (last year) was because of the hyphenation with Ashwin. Even in his mind? Perhaps, he needs a more attacking spinner from the other end. When Ashwin started to dip a bit, it seemed Jadeja also went down a touch. When the other spinner is performing well, Jadeja also raises his game in the ODIs. Is it a matter of self-confidence, then? When the other spinner is attacking, does Jadeja squeeze through his overs that much more effectively?
Does he thrive in scenarios when batsmen are almost in desperation to take him on, score runs off him because they respect the other spinner in the middle overs? When the runs are coming from the other bowlers as well and there is no over-eagerness in batsmen, are they able to score off Jadeja that much easily? It’s a bit of conjecture now, looking at past patterns, but the immediate future would probably give us more cues on this. Can Jadeja be the frontline spinner in a ODI scenario?
But one thing is clearer. His batting has definitely improved a lot and his confidence after his performance against England would be definitely be sky high. He was bowling to Rishabh Pant in the nets, outside the arena, when Dinesh Karthik came to bat in the third Test against England in Nottingham. With an earpiece on which he streamed in the match commentary, Jadeja whirled away at Pant who was reverse sweeping and generally having some fun out there.
A journalist who was present recalls Jadeja stiffening up as the commentator screamed out that Karthik had fallen for a duck, and told Pant, “Hey DK out ho gaya. You better bat seriously now. You would be playing the next game.” India missed a trick by not playing Jadeja in that fourth game but sometimes absences say more. As that game went along and Ashwin struggled to make an impact, all the talking heads started to talk up Jadeja.
It’s in this context he came in for the final Test and made a truly impressive contribution with the bat. There must have been huge pressure on him; a failure there and he could have been put under cold storage for a while but he played his most disciplined Test knock, playing out couple of testing spells from James Anderson who was bending the ball away from him, and looked for the first time a proper Test batsman out there. Someone you could trust. Someone who you could send out to bat when the team was in trouble. Someone who seemed to have developed his game more. Someone who has come back with a fierce desire. His bowling was spot-on, and his fielding as ever was impeccable.
When he is in full song, the entire package that he offers is of great value: a brilliant fielder, most powerful throw in world cricket, a self-aware bowler who can be depended to bowl to his fields, and a batsman increasingly growing more assured. It would be most prudent for India to keep trying him out in ODIs and see how he develops more. If he can show consistently that he can be potent even when the other spinner doesn’t do well, then with his all-round skills, it would be difficult to ignore him in the shortest format.