Ravindra Jadeja is now the talk of Indian cricket. He is totally a different bowler now and his phenomenal feats have won him all round praises in the last couple of months.
When he made his Test debut against England in 2012 at Nagpur, India played with two left-arm spinners. Pragyan Ohja was already an established bowler in the Indian squad- but still the selectors wanted Ravindra Jadeja, mainly for his superabundance all round qualities. But he had lots of ups and downs in the initial stages, though he was off to a good start, picking three wickets in his first Test match.
In fact he had to struggle for his place in the playing XI. With Ashwin, Ohja and Harbhajan around it was not easy for him to cement a regular place in the squad, unless he came up with extraordinary performances every time he played.
But in 2013 he had an excellent time when the AussiEs toured India, succeeding with bat and ball the way he was expected to. And in the last one and half years everything has gone his way as he has been outstanding with both and ball.
Against the Kiwis last year he bowled and batted superbly, claiming 17 wickets in three matches and mainly his performance prior to the ongoing series against the Aussies was awesome. He mesmerised the English batsmen with his magnificent bowling. His seven-wicket spell at Chennai where India won an interesting match against England won him lot of praises.
He is repeating the same against the Australians now. Particularly the pair of Ashwin and Jadeja has been in devastating form. Both have contributed with bat too in a big way over the last one and half years. Whenever the top order failed they batted brilliantly to rescue Indian on many ocassions.
There is in fact a considerable change in Jadeja’s bowling these days. In the last two matches he has taken around twenty wickets and every time he is given the ball one feels confident of his getting wickets.
Even on a flat Ranchi wicket he proved that he can be dangerous with his uncanny line and length.
He has added lot of variety into his bowling now. His flatter trajectory has been a hard nut to crack for the batsmen and his pace in the air does not give the batters enough time to play shots.
In the last couple of series Jadeja’s dismissals have been all big guns and the way he dismissed Smith in this series, particularly at Ranchi couple of days ago in the second innings, is a class example of how has developed the art of deceiving the batsmen with his variety.
He is now establishing himself in all formats and the one who fir in all three versions can be counted on fingers.
He is only 29-year-old and has plenty of cricket left in him. Let us hope he will end up as a fine allround cricketer.
