The Indian all-rounder, Kedar Jadhav made his international debut at the age of 29 and before that, he had played 162 matches across first-class, List A and T20 cricket. However, before playing international cricket, he had bowled just 17 times and took eight wickets. He was even an occasional wicketkeeping in the IPL. Somehow, Jadhav has turned himself into a regular bowler for India in ODIs and developed a knack of taking big wickets as he has been more than just handy with his round-arm off-spin as he is with the bat.
On Sunday, in the fifth ODI against New Zealand in Wellington, India only played one frontline spinner in Yuzvendra Chahal, alongside two quicks in Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami and two seam-bowling allrounders in Hardik Pandya and Vijay Shankar, so Jadhav became the second spinning option. It was a new combination for India and a new role for Jadhav. He responded as per the expectations by conceding just 34 runs in his seven overs, he dismissed the Kiwi skipper Williamson as India defended 252 to win by 35 runs.
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Rohit Sharma, India’s stand-in ODI skipper, was elated after Jadhav’s performance and said he could play this role in the 2019 World Cup too.
During the post-match press conference, Sharma said, “We want to try all the combinations, whatever is available with us. We wanted to try the four seaming options and one spinner, with Kedar being the part-time option there. See, if the series was on the line, we would have played with two spinners, probably three seamers, with Kedar being there. In the World Cup, anything can happen to anyone – injuries, out of form. Keeping those things in mind we wanted to try out every combination that we can have as a team. We tried two spinners, we tried four seamers and one spinner, and then Kedar always gives us the balance of being the second spinner.”
Talking about Kedar further, Rohit said, “I consider him as a proper spinner because every game, you see, he bowls four-five overs, and gets a wicket as well, at the crucial time. Even today you saw, the wicket of Kane Williamson was a crucial point when he got that wicket, because they were going pretty well at that point, things were looking very easy from a New Zealand perspective. He came and broke that partnership and we’ve seen that many a time, he’s done that. He gives that balance also, if we want to play four seamers and one spinner, and Kedar being sort of your second lead spinner.”
Having chosen to bat first, India was struggling at 18 for 4 before a partnership of 98 between Ambati Rayudu and Shankar doing the rescue job. Rayudu eventually made 90, and the contributions of Shankar, Jadhav and Pandya in the middle order helped lift India to 252. Rohit said India were aware batting first might be difficult, but they chose to do so in order to challenge themselves.
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Sharma explained, “I had a look before the toss and we knew that there was some moisture so we decided as a team, that we want to be going and facing those challenges. Now that we’ve played the way we played, posted a decent target on the board, that wouldn’t have happened if we would have chased. I thought the wicket also got flatter towards the end, and we knew that to some extent it will be better to bat second, but as a team we wanted to go out there and see how we face those challenges, because come to the World Cup, big games, we will be put into those situations, so what then.”
Rohit acknowledged that they lost the first fours wickets too early, but that has been learning for them as a batting unit, as to how we should be batting when the ball is swinging. He also said that they have also got some positives out of it as well. He also expressed that Rayudu’s form through the series has given him a lot of confidence.
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Sharma elaborated, “Massive confidence for him to bat in a situation like that when the team is down, 20 for 4, and you’ve got to bail the team out of that situation. He used his experience, and again, we have seen, no matter how many wickets you lose, you stitch one good partnership, and things start to look slightly different, a lot better I would say when you have those kind of partnerships. He batted and finished off games in Tauranga when we played there, stitched a good partnership again with MS [Dhoni] and then Dinesh [Karthik], so yeah, he’s looking very good at the moment. We’ve got five more games against Australia as well, back home, so if he bats the way he batted [in this series], it will be good for us.”
