Ravindra Jadeja - the Batter - has arrived

Cricket | Test | Sri Lanka Tour of India, 2022 | India | Sri lanka | First Test, Mohali | Ravindra Jadeja

Ravindra Jadeja - the batsman - has seen a cricket career of two halves. Making his international cricket debut in 2012, his career average stood at 21.50 at the end of 2015. He was looked upon as a bowling-allrounder with heroic performances in the 2013 Champions Trophy and in home Test matches with the ball in hand. This was despite the fact that he had scored three triple centuries in domestic first-class cricket. There were times when he batted as low as no. 9 with Ravichandran Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha preceding him. He had played a few cameos lower down the order but was yet to be proclaimed as a true allrounder.

Cut to 2022, his average today reads 36.46 and if you look at his record from 2016, he scores 57.48 runs per dismissal. That is a dream number for any top-order batsman in cricket. He has shown that he is a good enough no. 6 across conditions across formats. He has played quite a few impactful knocks for the team, his 175* today certainly the most. On the first day of the Test match, he was happily playing the second fiddle as Rishabh Pant teed off to 96 at the other end. Come day 2, he stitched over a hundred runs with Ashwin, brought up his century with a boundary and then smartly farmed the strike as Sri Lanka got into India's lower order. This innings contained all that you expect from a Test batsman - patience, strokeplay, big runs and aggression when needed.

When Virat Kohli had decided to go with Jadeja over Ashwin to accompany his four pacers in England last year, people thought he was undermining the latter's ability to pick wickets in foreign conditions. He wasn't. He was simply putting more faith in Jadeja the batsman, who was going to be more important in the seam-friendly conditions than Jadeja, the bowler. He repaid the faith by scoring 56, 40, and 30 respectively at Nottingham, Lord's and Leeds, playing some excellent cricket. He was even promoted as high as no. 5 to provide dynamism to the Indian batting line-up. 

Add his accurate bowling to all the batting heroics, and we have a true all-rounder, ready to walk into any cricket team in the world. Arguably one of the best all-rounders today, along with Ben Stokes and Jason Holder, and Shakib al Hasan maybe. And undoubtedly the best fielder in the world. That's Sir Jadeja for you. He bats, he bowls, he fields.

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