Sir Jadeja awakens..

This is so heartening to see. The beloved Sir Jadeja rising to the occasion, and how !! The last few years he has played in the shadows of  Ashwin, and while Ashwin was in imperious form with the ball and bat in Test cricket, honestly Jadeja never got the credit despite decent performances with the ball. What is heartening perhaps for the Team management is his batting this time. He handed the same pill to the England Team which Sam Curran has been irritatingly giving all throughout the tour to Team India. Jadeja was no mean mug with the bat ever, and more often than not threw his wicket to a rash or an expansive low percentage shot. This time he batted like he should have all these years, maybe it was the situation this time. It has been so long Jadeja produced a batting gem of an innings like the one he produced yesterday, and all in quick time, that he himself acknowledged it was too long coming, and while celebrating for the half century he swung his bat like a sword in his hand and gestured to removing dust from it !! 

India will be heaving a sigh of relief for they were hoping the lower and middle order produce some runs in absence of Hardik Pandya and Ravi Ashwin. Ashwin has been a former opener and his batting style is suited to Test cricket. Needless to say he has been quite prolific batting from where he bats, with a career batting average of 29.72. Compare that to the lifetime batting average of the legendary Kapil Dev which was 31.05, and Ashwin is not far off. Jadeja is at 29.17, so not too far behind despite having not produced a meaty innings for a very long time. Jadeja's test batting average is better than Suresh Raina (18 matches, Average: 26.48) or Dinesh Karthik (26 matches, Average: 25) and even his yesteryear namesake Ajay Jadeja (15 matches, Average: 26.18). He has a triple hundred in domestic first class cricket, so the ability to bat long is certainly there. His first class average is 44+ with 8 hundreds and 23 half centuries, to suggest he may be allowed to slot in the top 6 in any side. He has always been there, but seldom proved to be an effective lower order batsman, perhaps the perfect No. 7 India need. With this innings, Jadeja has in my view booked a seat for the tour of Australia later this year in December and perhaps relegated Kuldeep Yadav to the third spinner spot. But then Kuldeep is a different animal altogether. 'Sir' Jadeja has awakened, and will be one of the few in the Indian contingent who would leave English shores with his head held high, and his reputation (and expectations) enhanced !!