Ravindra Jadeja Is In The Same Bracket As Ben Stokes: Deep Dasgupta
Published - 31 Dec 2020, 08:08 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 01:19 PM
Former Indian stumper Deep Dasgupta has heaped high praise on all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja where he went on to compare the southpaw with England’s Ben Stokes.
Jadeja has been at the height of his powers as a Test all-rounder in the past few years and one of the biggest reasons behind it has been the manner in which batting has developed.
Since 2016, Jadeja’s numbers in Test cricket have been better than all his contemporary all-rounders. The southpaw is averaging 46.29 with the bat and 24.97 with the ball, with Ben Stokes (42.34 and 27.59) and Shakib Al Hasan (38.48 and 26.03) behind him.
“Jadeja replacing Virat Kohli in the 2nd Test was one of the things in my mind because of the way he has batted in the last couple of years. Generally, people think about Jadeja that he is a bowler who can bat, someone who hasn’t capitalized much in Test cricket,” Deep Dasgupta was quoted as saying by India Today.
“But I always thought he has actually done better than a lot of batsmen in the last couple of years. He’s getting runs across all formats, and also as recently as last year he was the world’s top-ranked Test bowler,” he added.
‘He’s putting a price to his wicket’- Deep Dasgupta on Ravindra Jadeja
The all-rounder had a brilliant outing in the Boxing Day Tests where he scored 57 with the bat besides claiming 3 wickets including two crucial scalps in the second innings.
Dasgupta added that Jadeja getting dropped from the white-ball set-up in 2017 has played a major role in his resurgence as a batsman. According to the former stumper, the Saurashtra all-rounder, prior to his axing in 2017, did not take his batting seriously.
He also added that CSK should have promoted Ravindra Jadeja to the No.4 spot in the absence of Suresh Raina in the 2020 IPL.
“As of now the way he’s batting he definitely is (in the same bracket as Ben Stokes). Even during the IPL I actually said why not him at No. 4 for CSK. He’s got a couple of triple hundreds in domestic cricket, getting runs there is not easy,” Dasgupta said.
”For Saurashtra, he bats at No. 4 but for India, he comes in at 7 or 8. Somehow I felt that he never took his batting seriously enough. In 2017 he was dropped from the side but and I think what kind of prompted him was the fact that he wanted to make himself more useful to the team, not just with the ball but with the bat as well. Because Jadeja, I know for a fact, always wanted to be a batsman.” he added.
“He always had the skillset with the bat but earlier on he would play terrible shots and get out. But now he’s putting a price to his wicket, he’s thinking and batting like a batsman and that I think has changed in his batting in the last few years,” Dasgupta said.
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