Like the warrior that he is, Ravindra Jadeja waged a spectacular fight. It wasn’t violent and counterpunching, it wasn’t visceral and aggressive.
After all, this wasn’t the time for bravado, it wasn’t the stage to embrace adventurism.
With India firmly on the backfoot, their hopes of scaling down a target of 193 hanging by the slenderest of threads at Lord’s on Monday, Jadeja dipped into his vast pool of experience. Into his immense reserves of mental strength. Into his reservoir of discipline and restraint, but also self-belief and confidence. He was convinced he was the man for the job, that he could do it, with a bit of help, with some assistance, with application and support from two men with no great batting credentials.
To his great credit, the 36-year-old left-hander almost pulled the fat out of the fire. He nearly conjured a miracle, until he ran out of partners. At the end, as he stood in dismay and disbelief, his hand on his helmet after Mohammed Siraj played Shoaib Bashir on to his stumps and handed England victory by 22 runs in the most maniacal of Test matches, one couldn’t help but feel for him.
Jadeja hasn’t had the most fruitful series with the ball, but with the bat, he has been special. Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul have hogged the limelight following their multiple trysts with three-figures over the last three weeks, but Jadeja has been a picture of consistency. 11 and 25* in Leeds, 89 and 69* in Birmingham, and now 72 and 61* at Lord’s. He hasn’t been dismissed in the second innings of a Test so far, he has struck four consecutive half-centuries.
At No. 6, which has been his position in the last three innings, he is the bridge between the specialist top order and the second half generously populated by all-rounders – he has youngsters Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy for company, followed by the pacers. Jadeja’s ability to bat alongside a specialist batter was never in doubt; on Monday, at 82 for seven and especially from 112 for eight, he showed that he is equally adept at batting with the tail too.
Jadeja’s farming of the strike when Jasprit Bumrah and Siraj were his partners for the ninth and last wickets respectively was impeccable. In a stand of 35 with Bumrah that spanned 132 deliveries, Jadeja faced 78; with Siraj, who helped him add 23 for the tenth, Jadeja’s share of the 80 balls negotiated was 50. That’s 128 of the 212 balls that the last two wickets saw off – roughly 60.4%.
Could Ravindra Jadeja have attacked more?
Could Jadeja have done more? Potentially, yes, but it’s worth remembering that he had nothing, absolutely nothing, to play with. Once Nitish was dismissed, Jadeja had to not just face a majority of the balls but also do the bulk of the scoring. Ben Stokes’ defensive fields aimed at giving him the single and exposing Ten and Jack meant he couldn’t score freely without taking risks, and a Jadeja going on the adventurous trail was precisely what India couldn’t afford. Till he was in the middle, one felt, India were in with a shout because of all the batters in the second innings, he looked the most assured, the most compact, the least troubled by the vagaries of a day-five surface. Seven fielders manning the boundary ropes wasn’t an invitation anyone in their sane mind would have tried to take on, so the criticism that Jadeja ought to have been more proactive immediately falls flat on its face.
The one thing he would have loved to do is bunt the ball into the big gaps in the vast outfield and look for twos so that the score board could keep moving and he could retain the strike in the early half of each over. But neither Bumrah nor Siraj is the fastest between 22 yards and a potential run out wasn’t an advisable trade-off. In so many ways, Jadeja was therefore forced to bat with one hand tied behind his back. That he still managed to see off four and a half hours and 181 deliveries, and take India within four blows of a 2-1 lead, is credit to his situational awareness and innate acumen.
Jadeja loves to celebrate batting milestones with a left-handed bat twirl – ‘I am a Rajput but I can’t bring a sword to the ground, so I have to make do with a bat’ – but he refrained from that routine on reaching half-century No. 26 on Monday. Because the job wasn’t done yet. Had India breasted the tape, that famous show of wrist-strength would undoubtedly have surfaced. Alas, he had to settle for heartbreak and tears. Oh, cruel Test cricket. Oh, wonderful Test cricket.