It’s been more than a week since India’s heartbreaking loss to England at Lord’s. The stage is set for the 4th chapter of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, set to unravel at the Old Trafford in Manchester, but a part of everyone’s mind is still stuck on what happened eight days ago in London, where, despite putting up a brave fight, India fell short by 22 runs as the ball, off the bat of Mohammed Siraj, trickled onto the stumps. Still from being down at 112/8 – at a time when the match seemed to finish inside the first session – that India pushed their total to 172 speaks volumes of the fight shown by their lower order – Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj.
As Jadeja held up one end, he stitched crucial partnerships – 35 with Nitish Reddy, 30 with Jasprit Bumrah and another 23 with Siraj, to, at one point, raise hopes of an India win, which seemed unlikely until a couple of hours prior. Jadeja remained unbeaten on 61 off 181 deliveries; however, despite his best efforts, the India all-rounder's innings divided opinions. Jadeja carefully rotated the strike, giving the fourth and fifth balls of the over to his tail-end partners, but some, including Ravi Shastri, felt he could have attacked more.
Shastri was vocal about it as he commented on air, repeatedly urging Jadeja to go after the bowling, especially against Shoaib Bashir and Joe Root, when the field was up. Still, Jadeja took the safer route, which Shastri reckons could have been avoided.
"I thought the time was before lunch, when Nitish Reddy and Jadeja were batting. One of the two should have gone for it. Because the field was up. The ball was a little harder. Once it got soft, you knew there would be one delivery with your name written on it. At some stage, I thought they could have taken more chances, and brought that deficit down to about 40, and then play the way they did," Shastri said on The Overlap Podcast.
Ravindra Jadeja vs Ben Stokes
Jadeja’s knock drew parallels with the once-in-a-lifetime innings that England captain Ben Stokes once played against Australia in Headingley during the 2019 Ashes. Stokes single-handedly took England to victory, adding 101 runs with the last three wickets, switching to beast mode and smashing the Australian bowlers en route to finishing 135 not out. Now, Jadeja is not a big striker of the ball like Stokes, but Shastri pointed out that if he had more belief in his batting, he would have been an even bigger match-winner for India.
"If Jadeja has even 40 percent of the belief of Stokes, he will win you more matches. Because there is no doubt about his talent. It’s just that he has to go and take charge. If he believes he can take charge, he can do it. He’s got three triple-hundreds in First-Class cricket. It took him a long time. Three only. And it took him ages to realise that he has batting potential," added the former India head coach.