Picking Ravindra Jadeja For His Batting Backfired For India In ICC World Test Championship Final, Feels Sanjay Manjrekar

Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar feels that picking Ravindra Jadeja in the playing XI during the ICC World Test Championship final backfired for the Indian team.

The cricket commentator Manjrekar also said India should have gone for a specialist batsman in the team like Hanuma Vihari instead of Ravindra Jadeja. His comments come after India lost to New Zealand by 8 wickets in the final of the ICC World Test Championship.

The Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja scored 15 and 16 runs in both innings and picked 1 wicket, which he got in the 1st innings. With Ravichandran Ashwin in the playing XI, India arrived on the field with two spinners but it did not yield effective results as pacers stole the show in the match.

New Zealand restricted India to 217 and 170 in both the innings, and then comfortably chased down the 139-run target in the 2^nd innings with 8 wickets in their kitty.

Picking Ravindra Jadeja For His Batting Backfired: Sanjay Manjrekar

While speaking on ESPNCricinfo, Sanjay Manjrekar mentioned that picking two spinners in the match which was affected by rain was a debatable selection.

“If you have to look at how India went about before the game started, picking two spinners was always a debatable selection especially when the conditions were overcast and the toss was delayed by a day. They picked one player for his batting, which was Jadeja, and his left-arm spin wasn’t the reason he was picked. He was picked for his batting and that is something that I am always against,” Manjrekar said.

Sanjay Manjrekar also said that picking a specialist batsman like Hanuma Vihari instead of Ravindra Jadeja would have been useful.

“You have got to pick specialist players in the team and if they felt that the pitch was dry and turning, they would have picked Jadeja for his left-arm spin, along with Ashwin, that would have made sense. But they picked him for his batting and I think that backfired as mostly it does. Had they had a specialist batsman in Hanuma Vihari for example, who had a pretty good defence, that would have been handy. Maybe 170 could have been 220, 225 or 230, who knows?” he further said.

Since the WTF final was affected by rain, the spinners could not do much and pacers stole all the limelight. For India, Mohammad Shami picked 4 wickets in the 1^st innings.

However, New Zealand pacer Kyle Jamieson picked 7 wickets, while Tim Southee and Trent Boult picked 5 wickets each. Kiwi’s collective pace attack dismantled the Indian batting in both innings, halting them from reaching a big total on the scoreboard.