Ravichandran Ashwin is an astute reader and student of the game. He has tremendous game awareness and appreciates the dynamics of the contest between bat and ball. He is also very precise with his words. After winning the third Test against England, he complimented his bowling partner for “bowling those boring areas”.
Casual followers of the game may see this as a backhanded compliment. Detractors of the boring game that runs for five days and still doesn’t guarantee a result may see this as proof of its soporific nature. Only Test match geeks will appreciate the sense of admiration behind Ashwin’s compliment for his bowling partner and master of the bore, Ravindra Jadeja.
Baptism by Twitter fire
Jadeja was dividing opinions early in his career. He got suspended from IPL when he was caught discussing contracts with other teams trying to earn a better price, something the IPL market didn’t permit. He came back into the marquee T20 league with a price tag that seemed too high for his abilities.
Social media, true to its habit, started berating a man who they thought became too rich too quickly. A proud man, Jadeja started retaliating in kind to who mocked him on Twitter only to become a target of even more social media revile. The man continued to take solace in what was his only refuge since childhood, training harder, and harder on his game.
Born in a humble family and coached in the old school Indian way of learning under the fear of stick every time he didn’t do well, Jadeja was never going to get broken by trolls. In MS Dhoni, he found just the right kind of leader to harness his potential.
Dhoni demanded unrelenting toil from Jadeja in exchange for a secured place on the team sheet. Jadeja fitted Dhoni’s plans perfectly. He was a world-class fielder and an accurate bowler who allowed Dhoni to control the game by building pressure. Dhoni often felt let down by Jadeja’s batting, but he knew it wasn’t from lack of effort.
Graduation to Test cricket
At one point, it seemed like limited overs cricket was all that Jadeja was ever going to play. But following a season where he scored big runs in Ranji trophy and one where Monty Panesar spun a web around Indian batsmen with his quickish left arm spin, Dhoni and selectors decided to send an SOS to Jadeja for the final Test against England in 2012.
The social media trolls again weren’t amused accusing the captain of favouritism. Jadeja repaid for the faith in his ability by bowling a controlled spell against England and then delivering stellar performances against Australia, getting captain Michael Clarke out five times in six innings. He also started having fun on social media when not just the fans but his own teammates started poking fun at him by calling him “Sir Jadeja”, a sobriquet that stuck with him through good and bad times.
Four years into his Test career, Jadeja hasn’t seen a Test match loss on home soil. Many may find it difficult to accept, but it was his addition to the team that lent balance and control to the unit. As Ashwin said, he knows how to bore batsmen. In a generation where batsmen aren’t adept at batting for time, accurate and nippy left-arm spinners are proving a handful on turning subcontinent wicket as Jadeja and Ranganna Herath have shown.
The reliable workhorse
The quintessential workhorse and a captain’s delight, Jadeja backs his ability to peg away at the batsmen and rely on natural variations from the pitch and self-doubts from the batsmen do the job for him. In the fourth innings on a wearing pitch, he is almost impossible to negotiate.
The captain and the opposition know that even Ashwin can have an off day on a turning pitch but you can almost bet on Jadeja to come at you all the time. If Ashwin is an artist, Jadeja is the artisan, both equally valuable with their skills. If they are coming at you from opposite ends in tandem, you know as a batsman that you will have to answer almost every question on batsmanship against spin.
It is natural for the “boring” Jadeja to get ignored at times. A bit like how Scottie Pippen often gets ignored for his defensive role in Chicago Bulls’ winning three NBA seasons in a row raising Michael Jordan’s stature as the greatest of all time.
Much like Jordan, Ashwin himself would be the first one to appreciate Jadeja’s defensive role in keeping the pressure at the other end allowing him to architect the primary demolition job.
If you need a proof of Jadeja’s attritional skills, the second innings of the second Test at Vishakhapatnam provides a good example. Jadeja had toiled at the same line throughout the day against Cook. It was the final over of the day and some would have expected Jadeja to go for some other trickery, a sucker punch may be or a clever variation.
Jadeja though, was just happy to roll it in at the same tight line and length. He knows it’s the batsman who is under more pressure in this situation. Cook proved him right and made the slightest error in judging the line and was out leg before, deflating English spirits.
If Cook had survived that over, Jadeja would have backed himself to come back the next day and do the same thing over and over. The workhorse doesn’t think much of the occasion, it has faith in toiling hard and not in doing fancy tricks.
An added bonus from Jadeja in the Mohali Test was his contribution with the bat. He has started trusting his defence a bit more and wants to play the long inning instead of a quick blitz. His batting is taking forward strides since the South Africa series at home. A different test awaits of course when the team travels abroad.
Both Ashwin and Jadeja have lent the team an extra dimension with their batting now. This could mean India can play 2 spinners and 3 fast bowlers in overseas conditions, giving Kohli the option of building pressure with his spinners and attacking with his seamers. Both Jadeja and Ashwin haven’t achieved great success in conditions that aren’t helpful for spin bowling. Maybe it will change if they get to bowl in tandem overseas. Maybe they are just destined to hunt together as a pack.