AHMEDABAD: Whatever Ravindra Jadeja is touching these days, everything is turning to gold.
For someone who was not part of the Indian Test team and dropped from the Indian ODI and T20 teams not very long ago, the southpaw from Saurashtra has done extremely well to hog the headlines so frequently, and for all his action on the field and not off it like many of his fellow cricketers.
And the all-rounder who made his Test debut on the strength of his batting is bowling like a man with a golden arm, hardly going wrong and giving the breakthroughs whenever India needed them.
He started off with two triple hundreds in the Ranji Trophy last year and immediately made his Test debut, played successfully in the ODIs and T20s for India and then had a successful IPL campaign.
In the Champions Trophy in England, Jadeja just started from where he left in India. No doubt he has become such a trusted lieutenant to captain MS Dhoni.
In his man-of-the-match performance against the West Indies on Tuesday he not only picked up five wickets but was also the most economical among all Indian bowlers. His quota of 10 overs had two maidens, cost him 36 runs and picked the wickets of Johnson Charles, Marlon Samuels, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Sunil Narine and Ravi Rampaul.
That two of his victims were leg-before, one bowled and one caught behind also shows that he was accurate to the T and bowling tight length without giving any room for the batsmen to score. Jadeja was in fact enjoying his show and he topped it with a catch of the West Indies skipper Dawyne Bravo off the bowling of Umesh Yadav.
"I was just trying to bowl in the right areas, I played here against England and took two wickets, I'm just trying to give my good performance. I was just bowling wicket-to-wicket and letting the pitch do the rest," Jadeja said after receiving his man-of-the-match award during the post match presentation. His performance was also praised by both Bravo and Indian skipper Dhoni after the match.
"We didn't have enough runs, after the start we got, we deserved to have got 40-50 runs more, having said that, the Indians bowled well in the middle overs. They had their plans and stuck to it," said Bravo. "Overall a very good performance, they got to a very good start, they seemed like they would get 280 runs or so, our bowlers did very well after that, our bowlers were able to keep the batsmen at their respective ends, didn't let them rotate easily," said Dhoni and added with a smile: "You think I know him (Jadeja) well, but even I'm finding out over a period of time."
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