Jadeja, India’s golden arm strikes it rich again with a six-wicket haul
Ravindra Jadeja might seem to be a happy-golucky character playing supporting role to R Ashwin. The left-arm spinner, however, has risen to become a matchwinner with the ball.
The all-rounder capturing his secondbest haul of 6/63 to help India gradually take the upper hand in the second Test on Monday.
His five wickets from the end with less wear and tear, showed his wicket-taking skill. On Day 2, he smartly got opener Matt Renshaw stumped, after having skipper Steven Smith caught off bat and pad. Surprisingly, skipper Virat Kohli had been reluctant to bowl him more. It was Jadeja who got the wickets to ensure that Australia’s lead got restricted to 87. It was a surprise that Jadeja bowled only 21.4 overs while Ashwin sent down 49 overs, taking 2/84. Even Ishant (27) and Umesh (24) bowled more. Earlier, Jadeja was taken off after just three overs, despite having removed Smith. And when handed a longer spell later --- of 11 overs --- he rewarded the team with two crucial wickets.
On Monday morning, he wrapped it up by taking three wickets in 10 deliveries.
The contrast stood out as Ashwin, despite the number of lefthanded batsmen in Aussie camp, didn’t adopt an attacking line, and instead tried to hit the rough outside their leg-stump. He kept going on in the evening session on Day 2 despite looking tired.
In the Chennai Test against England too, Ashwin had toiled without much success. But Jadeja turned the game on its head, capturing a career-best 7/48 to bowl India to a win.
India batting coach, Sanjay Bangar, said: “Since we were bowled out cheaply, bowling medium-pacers was definitely part of Virat’s plan to keep the run rate down. And because the left-handers were batting from both ends, we wanted to exploit the rough with Ashwin bowling from the pavilion end. In that process, Jadeja didn’t get to bowl the number of overs he would have ideally liked.”