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Follow UsWhen we talk about the 2020-21 India tour of Australia, we often speak about Rishabh Pant and Shubman Gill’s heroics with the bat in the final innings of the last Test at Gabba. Some people also talk about Mohammed Siraj’s five-wicket haul and Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur’s crucial partnership during the first innings of the same Test.
Then there are some who often remind us of how, despite being injured, Hanuma Vihari and R Ashwin batted for close to 43 overs and helped India draw the third Test in Sydney.
It all started with India getting bowled out for 36 in the first Test in Adelaide. With Virat Kohli not available for the remainder of the series, you could imagine the pressure India would have been under.
Ajinkya Rahane took charge and made a statement by smashing a series-defining century in the second Test in Melbourne. That was the knock that made everyone believe that this series is far from over. Rahane always gets mentioned when we talk about India’s arguably best series win in the history of Test cricket, but there was one more player who played an equally important knock in the same Melbourne Test.
We are talking about Ravindra Jadeja. The Men in Blue were 173/5 at one stage in response to Australia’s first-innings score of 195, courtesy of another Jasprit Bumrah masterclass. Australia could have easily wrapped up India’s lower order, but that’s when Jadeja stood tall alongside Rahane and added 121 runs for the sixth wicket. The left-hander crafted 57 off 159 deliveries and more or less batted Australia out of the contest.
That knock doesn’t get mentioned much when we talk about the 2020-21 series, but that innings perfectly reflect what Jadeja, the batter, does for India. That was not the first time Jadeja had saved India from another collapse, and it was not going to be the last time. The Saurashtra all-rounder has been one of India’s most consistent batters in red-ball cricket since 2017.
To be precise, Jadeja has scored 2387 runs at an average of almost 40 in Test cricket since 2017. He has 17 fifties and four centuries to his name in this period. If you want the numbers to be more recent, the left-handed batter has 1040 runs in 29 innings at an average of 38.52 since 2022. Three of his four Test hundreds have come in the last three years.
Forget about Jadeja’s bowling, which is as good as it comes; his numbers with the bat are good enough to get him into the current Indian side as a pure batter. His average in the last three years is better than Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill, but Jadeja has been ignored for the first two Tests of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
And India have surely missed his services with the bat.
It was understandable when India decided to play in-form Washington Sundar ahead of him for a spin-bowling all-rounder role in the first Test in Perth. But when Rohit and Gill became unavailable for the opening Test, it was tough to fathom the fact that the management decided to play Dhruv Jurel and Devdutt Padikkal as pure batters ahead of Jadeja.
The two young batters could only manage 37 runs between them in four innings but it didn’t bother anyone as India won the Test by 295 runs. The Men in Blue getting bowled out for 150 in the first innings and suffering a mini middle-order collapse (3 wickets for 8 runs) in the second essay went largely unnoticed.
The Indian team management knew Rohit and Gill would be back for the second Test in Adelaide and swapped them straightaway with Jurel and Padikkal. Meanwhile, Washington was replaced with R Ashwin, with Jadeja still not finding a spot. Mind you, we are talking about a player who averages 43.75 with the bat and 21.8 with the ball in four Tests in Australia.
The Indian batting unit once again struggled to get runs and were bundled out for scores of 180 and 175, respectively, with not a single batter touching the 50-run mark. Nitish Reddy scored 42 runs in each of the two innings and could have got more if he had some support at the other end. That support could have easily come from Jadeja at No.7 or 8.
In Tests since 2022, Jadeja has seven 50-plus and nine 40-plus scores, and seven have of those have come after walking out to bat at the team score of less than 190, which is not really ideal for someone who mostly bats at No.7. In the first two Tests this series, Reddy hasn’t found much support from Washington, Ashwin and other frontline pacers down the order.
The Indian batters from No.7 to 11 have scored 253 runs between them at an average of 19.5, but 163 of those have come from Reddy’s bat. Therefore, the management will have to find a way to slot in Jadeja somewhere in the late middle-order or lower-order and they can do so by playing him as a spin-bowling all-rounder ahead of Ashwin and Washington.
Washington played the first Test and scored 33 runs and took two wickets, while Ashwin got one wicket and scored 29 runs in the pink-ball Test in Adelaide. The conditions in Gabba, where the third Test will be played, will once again be more favourable to seamers, and India could easily bring in someone like Jadeja just for his batting.
And there’s no denying that he is a far better batter than Ashwin and Washington. Ashwin has only two 50-plus scores in his last 25 innings. The right-hander has 13 single-digit scores in this period. Meanwhile, ever since his comeback to the Indian Test set-up in October, Washington hasn’t done much with the bat, managing only one 30-plus score in six innings.
The current Indian batting unit has also been blamed for being unable to bat time, especially in a place like Australia, where the conditions keep improving as the innings progresses. Someone like Cheteshwar Pujara has shown that in the past. In three out of four innings this series, India haven’t even managed to bat 50 overs. That’s not it, India have been bowled out under 40 overs on 14 occasions since 2020, with four of those occasions coming this year.
Most current Indian batters don’t trust their defence, but that’s not the case with Jadeja. Among Indian players who have played at least 10 Tests since 2022, Jadeja (76.7) has the third-best balls/dismissal after Jaiswal (80.8) and Pujara (79.8). The latter is no longer part of the Indian set-up, and Jaiswal is more of an aggressive batter, making Jadeja the only player in the current squad with the ability to bat time.
Even in world cricket, Jadeja has the third-best average amongst batters (Nos.6-11) who have played at least 15 Tests since 2022. When it comes to balls/dismissal, Jadeja is the best. That’s right, no other batter from the aforementioned positions has a better balls/dismissal than Jadeja in Test cricket since 2022.
These numbers should be enough to get him into the playing XI, and we haven’t even discussed his bowling. In Tests since 2020, Jadeja has a bowling average of 28.1 in 13 matches outside India. Jadeja has played in England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies and New Zealand in this period. Overall, in Australia, the left-arm spinner has 14 wickets in four Tests @ 21.8, which is absolutely not bad for a tweaker Down Under.
Jadeja isn't just good against the right-handers; he's equally lethal against left-handers, something that India could utilise at The Gabba.
The five-match series is currently tied at 1-1. The battle will only get more intense in the remaining three encounters, and India will need the services of their ‘swordsman’ Ravindra Jadeja. After all, there’s a reason why he’s the top-ranked Test all-rounder.
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