Watch his arm when he bowls next time. How at times he gets it to go round, almost dropping to the side, and then how suddenly he would bring it straighter, classical, high-arm. Ravindra Jadeja isn’t given as much credit as a spinner as he deserves.
Watch his arm when he bowls next time. How at times he gets it to go round, almost dropping to the side, and then how suddenly he would bring it straighter, classical, high-arm. Ravindra Jadeja isn’t given as much credit as a spinner as he deserves.
Watch his Twitter feed. Occasionally, he will let the world know he is hurt. Sometimes, he would delete them like he did last year after being dropped from the ODIs. Sometimes, like he did now as a response to Sanjay Manjrekar’s criticism, he puts something up, deletes it – and just when you thought about deja vu, he corrects a typo and re-posts it.
Watch him at nights on his farm in the outskirts of Jamnagar, as the security guards sometimes get to do. He would drop in, hop on unsaddled horses and ride on moonlit nights.
Watch Jadeja when he sometimes gets into fights with his own team-mates. Like with Suresh Raina in the West Indies when he reportedly said, “Because you’ve lost the captaincy, you’ve also lost interest in fielding?” His angry sister called him that evening to blast him but calmed down when she was told that he was with Raina at that moment and all was well. Or the time when he was involved in an argument with Ishant Sharma during a Test. Again, nobody in the team was surprised or worried. “They are like Tom and Jerry,” a member told this newspaper then.
Watch his farmhouse, in fact. ‘RJ” monograms in big bold crimson red painted all around his compound wall. Or watch his Audi car’s boot. Another monogram inscribed – it reads Ravi, with the tail of R cradling ‘AVI’. Or the sword-twirl of his bat, or his beard.
Here is a man who has immense pride in himself. Here is also a man who knows where he came from but is clear about where he wants to be. He loves his horses and used to bring rabbits, pigeons, fish, and dogs in the past. When asked whether he had pets as a kid, he said, “Apne khane ka thikana nahi tha, in logon ko kahan palta? (We didn’t know where our meals were coming from, how would I have kept pets?)”
Jadeja is also a man who knows how to bounce back. Nearly every time he has been written off — dropped from the team, from Tests or ODIs, — he comes back in some style. He and R Ashwin were dropped from the ODIs but there was no doubt who would bounce back — he has far too many arrows in his quiver to be ignored.
When he can’t make it to the playing XI, Jadeja will showcase why he is the best substitute in world cricket today. His last Twitter post reminds us about that as well with a #Bethe12thman.
And if he plays, as he has done in the last two games, Jadeja will make us wonder why he wasn’t in the team in the first place. #begobsmacked could well be his next tweet.
Jadeja is a far more intelligent bowler than the perceptions that swirl about him. “Oh, what does he do, he just lands them on a spot,” they go. Never mind that it’s a good trait to have but more importantly, he does a lot more. Watch his left arm again, also watch his feet. Of late, his use of the crease and the creation of angles has vastly improved. So has his bowling, especially after a visit to Narendra Hirwani, the spin coach at the National Cricket Academy.
It’s a tale that has been told before but just a short recap would be apt. Eager to work on change in pace but disappointed with how limp the ball would float whenever he tried bowling slow, Jadeja consulted Hirwani who told him to give the ball more revs — spin it more but don’t change your arm speed. That it would automatically lose pace — don’t try to bowl slow with your arm-speed but rip it more. Jadeja has become a vastly improved bowler since.
On Tuesday, he turned Hirwani’s advice upside down. Well, sort of. Jadeja not only ripped it but also managed to do it at pace, at times. The quicker balls turned that much more, or so it seemed. Whenever, Kane Williamson would think about cutting or punching, the ball would whoosh through to him at over 92 kmph and also turn.
That combo proved stifling. And for variation, he got his arm high, and slowed up the pace, with a bit of flight, and got it to turn. Something he did in the previous match as well. Usually, Jadeja doesn’t bring MS Dhoni as much into play for stumpings but he has kept the greatest stumper this game has known busy and expecting in the last couple of games. He nearly had Williamson in that manner – not an easy thing to do for most spinners. The balls whirred and turned at some pace, and then suddenly, it was slow turn. The New Zealand batsmen seemed confused. Dhoni would smile at Jadeja sometimes at the end of the over when the two met beside the pitch. A nod of the head, and an occasional pat.
Watch Jadeja on the field. He would fling himself here and there; he came up with a lovely stretched one-handed swoop at backward point – it was beautiful to watch. He has the most powerful arm in world cricket. His batting too has got better. On days like this, he can be, as he was, the best spinner in the team.
Once, when the watchman at his farmhouse was asked where can Jadeja be found in the evenings, he said, “Kings don’t have a fixed location. They can be found anywhere in the kingdom.”
Maybe, but we know, this king is always desperate to be on a cricket field, diving around, throwing down stumps, or even better, twirling his arm over in nagging accuracy or twirling his bat around.
Watch his Twitter feed. Occasionally, he will let the world know he is hurt. Sometimes, he would delete them like he did last year after being dropped from the ODIs. Sometimes, like he did now as a response to Sanjay Manjrekar’s criticism, he puts something up, deletes it – and just when you thought about deja vu, he corrects a typo and re-posts it.
Watch him at nights on his farm in the outskirts of Jamnagar, as the security guards sometimes get to do. He would drop in, hop on unsaddled horses and ride on moonlit nights.
Watch Jadeja when he sometimes gets into fights with his own team-mates. Like with Suresh Raina in the West Indies when he reportedly said, “Because you’ve lost the captaincy, you’ve also lost interest in fielding?” His angry sister called him that evening to blast him but calmed down when she was told that he was with Raina at that moment and all was well. Or the time when he was involved in an argument with Ishant Sharma during a Test. Again, nobody in the team was surprised or worried. “They are like Tom and Jerry,” a member told this newspaper then.
Watch his farmhouse, in fact. ‘RJ” monograms in big bold crimson red painted all around his compound wall. Or watch his Audi car’s boot. Another monogram inscribed – it reads Ravi, with the tail of R cradling ‘AVI’. Or the sword-twirl of his bat, or his beard.
Here is a man who has immense pride in himself. Here is also a man who knows where he came from but is clear about where he wants to be. He loves his horses and used to bring rabbits, pigeons, fish, and dogs in the past. When asked whether he had pets as a kid, he said, “Apne khane ka thikana nahi tha, in logon ko kahan palta? (We didn’t know where our meals were coming from, how would I have kept pets?)”
Jadeja is also a man who knows how to bounce back. Nearly every time he has been written off — dropped from the team, from Tests or ODIs, — he comes back in some style. He and R Ashwin were dropped from the ODIs but there was no doubt who would bounce back — he has far too many arrows in his quiver to be ignored.
When he can’t make it to the playing XI, Jadeja will showcase why he is the best substitute in world cricket today. His last Twitter post reminds us about that as well with a #Bethe12thman.
And if he plays, as he has done in the last two games, Jadeja will make us wonder why he wasn’t in the team in the first place. #begobsmacked could well be his next tweet.
Jadeja is a far more intelligent bowler than the perceptions that swirl about him. “Oh, what does he do, he just lands them on a spot,” they go. Never mind that it’s a good trait to have but more importantly, he does a lot more. Watch his left arm again, also watch his feet. Of late, his use of the crease and the creation of angles has vastly improved. So has his bowling, especially after a visit to Narendra Hirwani, the spin coach at the National Cricket Academy.
It’s a tale that has been told before but just a short recap would be apt. Eager to work on change in pace but disappointed with how limp the ball would float whenever he tried bowling slow, Jadeja consulted Hirwani who told him to give the ball more revs — spin it more but don’t change your arm speed. That it would automatically lose pace — don’t try to bowl slow with your arm-speed but rip it more. Jadeja has become a vastly improved bowler since.
On Tuesday, he turned Hirwani’s advice upside down. Well, sort of. Jadeja not only ripped it but also managed to do it at pace, at times. The quicker balls turned that much more, or so it seemed. Whenever, Kane Williamson would think about cutting or punching, the ball would whoosh through to him at over 92 kmph and also turn.
That combo proved stifling. And for variation, he got his arm high, and slowed up the pace, with a bit of flight, and got it to turn. Something he did in the previous match as well. Usually, Jadeja doesn’t bring MS Dhoni as much into play for stumpings but he has kept the greatest stumper this game has known busy and expecting in the last couple of games. He nearly had Williamson in that manner – not an easy thing to do for most spinners. The balls whirred and turned at some pace, and then suddenly, it was slow turn. The New Zealand batsmen seemed confused. Dhoni would smile at Jadeja sometimes at the end of the over when the two met beside the pitch. A nod of the head, and an occasional pat.
Watch Jadeja on the field. He would fling himself here and there; he came up with a lovely stretched one-handed swoop at backward point – it was beautiful to watch. He has the most powerful arm in world cricket. His batting too has got better. On days like this, he can be, as he was, the best spinner in the team.
Once, when the watchman at his farmhouse was asked where can Jadeja be found in the evenings, he said, “Kings don’t have a fixed location. They can be found anywhere in the kingdom.”
Maybe, but we know, this king is always desperate to be on a cricket field, diving around, throwing down stumps, or even better, twirling his arm over in nagging accuracy or twirling his bat around.