Ravindra Jadeja has been sensational of late. It is safe to say that he has been one of India’s match winners in the last 12 to 15 months. Deep Dasgupta, former Indian cricketer has Ravindra Jadeja him and has compared him to England’s Ben Stokes. Ravindra Jadeja is for now in the same bracket as England’s Ben Stokes as an all-rounder, says former India wicket-keeper batsman Deep Dasgupta. Jadeja played an integral role in India’s win against Australia in the second Test, returning with figures of 1/15 and 2/28 and scoring 57 in India’s first innings.
As of now the way Ravindra Jadeja is 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 told Sports Today. “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.” Dasgupta feels that Ravindra Jadeja was always a skilful batsman but is now making it more difficult for the batsmen to get him out. “He always had the skill set 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,” he said. Deep Dasgupta is not making empty claims as Ravindra Jadeja’s bowling and batting averages are slightly better than Ben Stokes over the last four years. Jadeja averages 46.29 & 24.97 with bat and ball since 2016.
Meanwhile, Stokes averages 42.34 and 27.59. Jadeja’s number are also better than Shakib Al Hasan as the Bangladesh all-rounder averages 38.48 and 26.03 with bat and ball. The inclusion of Ravindra Jadeja in the playing XI for the Boxing Day Test against Australia proved to be one of the major moves made by the visitors. The left-arm all-rounder scored a gritty 159-ball 57 and picked up 3 wickets, guiding India to a terrific 8-wicket win. “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” he added.