The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Man for all seasons has his day under lights
YUVRAJ SINGH and MS Dhoni had left within the space of nine balls. On the eve of his firstever ODI in-charge Virat Kohli had reiterated on a few occasions about how he had to now take up more responsibility of batting through the innings. He had also spoken about the importance of having that tag-team of Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh back in the middle to shore up his arsenal. But here, in what could best be described as tepid dismissals, both Dhoni and Yuvraj were gone. India were 63/4. England had earlier in the day posted their highest-ever ODI score, 350/7, against India. Now, we know Kohli loves run-chases. He gets a high off them. His numbers in this scenario are outrageous and well-documented. Here, he seemed to be facing an insurmountable task. Not so much because of the target facing him. He’d helped India surpass 350+ totals before. But he now only had Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya to come with still 287 runs to get.
Sohechosetodowhathedoesbest.justbat on. As far as the English were concerned nothing had changed from when they left before Christmas.theballwasofadifferentcolour,they themselvesweredonningcolour,theyhadadifferent captain in-charge and they were if anything more on top of India than they had been during the split tour. But still Kohli kept finding the boundary. Kohli kept scoring runs. Nothing seemed to have changed for Kohli either. And eventually he scored his 27th ODI ton to lead India in yet another successful run-chase, this time sharing a partnership with Jadhav that he would call one of the best of his career.
Jadhav might have come in and stolen the show. But it was Kohli who commenced the counterattack. He smashed David Willey, who had already snared one of the openers and would add the other one to his tally soon, over wide long-on for six. He did so after jumping out of his crease, despite this being only the fifth delivery of his innings. From there on, it was just Kohli holding court.
Whenever you think these days that you’ve seen it all from Kohli, he surprises you. On Sunday he struck two such shots. One was a whippy flick drive wide of mid-on off a ball that was way outside his off-stump and he had met after jumping out of his crease. The second was a six he hit of Chris Woakes with a straight bat off a short of length delivery that rose to near his chest and flew over mid-wicket.
The first came when India had lost their openers and the second came much later in his innings, after he and Jadhav had snatched the momentum away from the English without ever looking like they were going gung-ho about it. You would ideally imagine a target of 350 being chased down by a team that goes hell for leather from the word go. But Kohli seemed content with conquering this Everest by taking the stairs, with a few leaps and jumps in between of course.
The secret to the Kohli-jadhav stand was that they never let the English build any pressure. When they weren’t playing some outrageous shots, they were sprinting across the wickets with great regularity. In fact by the time they brought up their 150-run stand, they had only conceded 22 dot balls to the opposition. They were killing England softly.
The required run-rate remained stagnant at around 7.3 for most of their partnership, and it was only once Kohli and Jadhav cut loose did it shift, and that too in India’s favour.
When Kohli and Jadhav departed after their respective centuries it was that other missing piece in India’s ODI setup that needed that was in the spotlight as Hardik Pandya walked out to bat. For once, he looked calmer than the situation itself, and managed to see the team through without much fuss. Like Kohli and Jadhav, he too stuck to tapping the ball around but found the boundary when it mattered most, and in the end probably answered his captain’s call for a finisher too.
It was a run-chase where India always seemed to keep themselves ahead, despite the score-board showing on many occasions that they were way behind the eight-ball. No wonder then that Kohli counted this as one of his ‘special’ run-chases.
“We figured out how to tackle the situation. We thought we could play percentage cricket and keep taking that calculated risks in the middle. The ball travels very, very fast here. We could hit sixes to put that pressure every now and then on the opposition. We chased 350 a couple of times before but not from 63/4. Something really special and stay with me for a long time,” Kohli would say.
“Kedar and I had a gut feel. We thought if we get the score past 150, 160 together still with four down, we had a great chance. We kept looking at the numbers of balls and numbers of runs needed. Once it was below 10 we were confident,” he added.
England350/7in50overs (Jason Roy 73 off 61 balls, Joe Root 78 off 95 balls, Ben Stokes 62 off 40 balls, Hardik Pandya 2for46,ravindrajadeja1for50)vsindia356/7 48.1 overs (Virat Kohli 122 off 105 balls, Kedar Jadhav 120 off 76 balls, Hardik Pandya 40* off 37 balls, David Willey 2 for 47)
BRIEF SCORES:
IT WAS a contrived shot. You might not have ranked it too high on aesthetics. But it was certainly up there in terms of shock value.
Like he had earlier in the over, Moeen Ali had darted this one in with the intent of cramping Kedar Jadhav. But not only did Jadhav manage to make room; he also swatted it inside-out for four. Nobody else, except Jadhav himself, at the MCA Stadium could quite fathom how he’d hit a ball from a couple of inches outside leg stump over mid-off. That included Virat Kohli, who stood stunned at the non-striker’s end.
He wasn’t the only one going, “how did he do that?” though. It wasn’t the only time Jadhav left everyone around with that feeling on Sunday.
It had been a tight over from Ali till that point. He had conceded only three singles. Jadhav knew he had to find a boundary to quell the pressure. He had spotted space behind the mid-off fielder. So, he just decided to clear him. It didn’t matter to him where the ball pitched or was headed.
It was almost like he instinctively knew what had to be done from the moment he walked out to the crease. Even if the score read 63/4 and India were chasing 351 for victory. A counterattack was the need of the hour. So he
“Kedar and I had a gut feel. We thought if we get the score past 150, 160 together still with four down, we had a great chance. We kept looking at the numbers of balls and numbers of runs needed. Once it was below 10 we were confident.”
hit three boundaries off the first seven deliveries he faced. They were all relatively straightforward strokes played without any great flourish. But they were all placed with surgical precision. They were either hit wide enough or hard enough to beat the fielder.
With Kohli at his sublime best, he also needed to keep rotating the strike. So he did that as well. By the time he cruised past the half-century mark in just 29 balls, Jadhav had run 17 singles. England kept trying to get Kohli off strike. Jadhav kept bringing the Indian captain back on strike. And whenever he thought it wise, he smacked a boundary of his own.
It also pretty much summed up Kedar Jadhav, the cricketer. He’s not the most flamboyant cricketer in the world. You might not necessarily recall the shots he plays during a match. Sunday wasn’t the first time the 31year-old was actually hitting India out of trouble in his very limited career. But he’s always done it so unassumingly that not many probably would have taken much notice of it.
But here he wasn’t just holding his own alongside Kohli. He was outscoring his captain and, if anything, outshining him as well.
A couple of overs later, it was Adil Rashid who managed a few dot deliveries. Jadhav responded with first pulling him for four before going inside-out again and launching him over extra cover for a six. Just like that, the pressure was off.
Kohli would later describe some of Jadhav’s shots as ‘unbelievable’. He would even credit the diminutive right-hander as being the one man responsible for the successful run chase. This on a day he didn’t too badly either, scoring his 27th ODI ton.
But for a major part of a career that has spanned close to a decade, Jadhav has slipped under the radar despite being one of the runmerchants of domestic cricket. His chances at the highest level were far and few in between.
After his debut in Ranchi, the next six ODIS of his career came in Harare across two separate tours. On Sunday, he was playing at his home ground. But according to locals, there many among the thousands at the MCA Stadium who weren’t necessarily aware of him being their hometown boy, considering how low-profile he’s kept his life off the field.
Jadhav is the ultimate utility man. The kind that any team would want in their midst. He can win you matches while batting at No.6 like he did here, he can bowl you crucial overs at various stages of the match like he did here, and he can always triple up as a stand-in wicketkeeper. He goes about his cricket with a certain know how and street-smartness. And he thrives in being stylishly un-stylish.
Nowonderthatkohlipreferredjadhavover R Ashwin at the start of the death overs. Ben Stokes was going really hard then, and India needed to somehow try and stem the flow.
It’s an innocuous action really. If the trajectory of the ball isn’t low enough when he delivers it, considering his modest height, he crouches further and lowers his arm further at the point of release. It makes it extremely difficult for the batsman to get under it and hit it aerially. He also mixes up his angles of delivery, at times delivering from behind the crease along with slowing it up in the air.
While batting, Jadhav thrives on keeping a lowbase—whichisn’ttoodifficultconsidering hisheight—creatinglengthandslammingballs to the on-side, or like he showed on Sunday, manufacturing a shot through or over the offside. Towards the end, he was laid low by cramps,andonoccasionswasleftsprawledon the pitch. But still he managed to keep getting up and slamming sixes. It was that kind of knock.itwasthatkindofday,onewherejadhav left England and even his own captain in awe.
With Kohli at his sublime best, Kedar also needed to keep rotating the strike. So he did that as well. By the time he cruised past the half-century mark in just 29 balls, Jadhav had run 17 singles. England kept trying to get Kohli off strike. Jadhav kept bringing him back on strike.