Morne Morkel tags India's X factor, no Ravichandran Ashwin or Jasprit Bumrah in sight
India's bowling coach Morne Morkel was full of praises for the star India allrounder Ravindra Jadeja. Morkel claimed that Jadeja is a complete package as he contributes to all the departments and is also an X-factor player for India.
Ravindra Jadeja picked up his 300th Test wicket during the second Test between India and Bangladesh at Green Park, Kanpur. His 300th Test victim was Khaled Ahmed, who was the last wicket to fall in Bangladesh's first innings.
Jadeja is now among the 11 players who have achieved the double of scoring more than 3000 runs in Tests and more than 300 wickets in Test cricket. He is the seventh Indian to pick up 300 wickets in Tests after Anil Kumble, R Ashwin, Kapil Dev, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, and Zaheer Khan.
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Morne Morkel lauds Ravindra Jadeja for completing 300 Test wickets
During the press conference after Day 4 of the Kanpur Test, Morne Morkel hailed Ravindra Jadeja for completing 300 wickets in Test cricket. He called Jadeja a complete package and an X-factor player who contributes brilliantly in batting, bowling, and fielding.
"For me, he (Ravindra Jadeja) is a complete package. He bats, he bowls, he is a guy in the field who can make magic happen. He is an X-Factor player. He is a guy you always want in your team, and he has done that for so many years for India," Morne Morkel said.
"Yeah, to join the 300 Test wickets club is a special club. He has put in performances for India, and he is a guy that works on his game. That is what you want to see. So happy for him to reach that milestone," he added.
Jadeja hasn't had much to do in this Test so far. He picked up 1-28 in the first innings and scored 8 runs with the bat. However, he will be a key bowler for India on Day 5 as they look to bundle out Bangladesh as quickly as possible to produce a result.
Morne Morkel speaks on India's gameplan
Morne Morkel also spoke about India's game plan to take an aggressive route during their batting. He revealed that the message was to go for a win and show positive intent right from the start.
"That was our message this morning [to go for a win]. With losing two days of the Test, how do we start this morning? To show that positive intent was going to be key. Two days left in the Test match, extended sessions, there's still a lot of cricket, lot of time left in the game," Morne Morkel said.
Meanwhile, Day 4 was full of action as India produced an aggressive display of batting. All the batters showed intent as Indian batters tried their best to move the game forward. Despite losing wickets at regular intervals, the aggressive intent of batting did not stop.
India declared the innings on 285-9 with Yashasvi Jaiswal top-scoring for the team with 72 off just 51 balls. KL Rahul also announced his return to form with 68 off only 43 balls. Shubman Gill scored a crucial 39 while Virat Kohli scored 47 off 35 balls.
Skipper Rohit Sharma started the innings in a blistering way and showed the way to his team. Rohit smashed his first two balls for sixes laying a foundation for the team to follow. India took just 34.4 overs to score 285 runs.
