Jadeja played as much with his heart as with his head

The Hindu

a day ago

Lord's was hot, and seeing Ben Stokes virtually bowl himself into the ground was tiring just watching from the stands. It was a final day tempered with the heat of Stokes and treated with the ice of Ravindra Jadeja. Exhaustion is not a feeling, it is a physical state; yet at the end of the day, exhaustion was the key emotion as Mohammed Siraj sank to the ground, bowled almost unfairly by a ball trickling onto the stumps, to be forever haunted by the question: could he have kicked it away if he had reacted quickly? Joe Root who ran to console him, appeared relieved it would remain a rhetorical question.
Yet, for all of Stokes's heroics and England's sense of purpose, the man who dominated the day in his understated way was Jadeja. His fourth 50 of the series must count as one of India's great innings in a lost cause. For 22 overs, Jasprit Bumrah kept him company, the batters suggesting they might get them in singles. The fast bowler would defend and then shadow play the stroke he might have played — a perfect cover drive, for instance — had the circumstances been different. There was a calmness about the pair that contrasted with the hectic activity around as bowlers ran in, fielders spread out or closed in, and the crowd raised its decibel levels.
No boundaries and few runs — yet you couldn't take your eyes away. Test cricket was demonstrating it doesn't need the artificiality of bang-bang cricket, that spectators can gasp and cheer at a defensive stroke, and when apparently nothing is happening, everything is. Sitting on the edge of the seat through five hours can be a rewarding if painful experience.
Jadeja turns 37 this year, and despite his record, he was never in the frame for captaincy, and few cared for his cricketing opinions. He came, he saw, he did his job while the focus remained on the more glamorous.
Yet, as a left-arm spinner he has more wickets at a lower average and better strike rate than Bishan Bedi; as a left handed batter a better strike rate than Sourav Ganguly, and as an all rounder a better batting average and both average and strike rate than Kapil Dev. Jadeja wouldn't automatically replace any of these players in an Indian team, but however misleading statistics might be, you have to acknowledge them. He has also been one of India's finest fielders, bearing comparison with Mohammed Azharuddin.
Unselfish
At Lord's he managed India's tail with all the assurance of a V.V.S. Laxman, unselfishly and without ego. At one point, it was England who looked ragged. Stokes, who bowled 20 overs on the day, was so tired he occasionally forgot he was captain and the fielders seemed uncertain where to go. Too tired even to wave his arms to move them, Stokes merely looked around and hoped for the best. There were eight men on the fence with only two wickets remaining, at times there was no slip. Jadeja, the support act to leading batters, was now the main feature as the wickets fell. At 112 for eight at lunch, it looked done. Yet, Jadeja kept the hopes of a nation alive, with an innings of rare intelligence and courage.
Few Indian batters could be accused of throwing it away; none did so on the final day. Rahul had shown in his stint how stout defence might win the day, there was enough time. Many struggled. Joe Root, the best of them, made a century and a forty, but played and missed too many times and seemed out of sorts, finally getting bowled sweeping. Rahul's century in the first innings was more fluent, but it was left to India's No. 7 to play the innings of the match.
Of the many might-have-beens is the question of extras. India conceded 63 in the match, 32 of them in England's second innings 192. They lost by 22 runs. Go figure, as Americans might say.
In the final analysis, cricket is an individual sport. There is the bowler and there is the batter. Stokes's belief as bowler negated Jadeja's spirit as batter; everything else was secondary. England can be proud. So can India.