WTC Final: Sanjay Manjrekar raises questions on Ravindra Jadeja’s selection in the playing XI against New Zealand

WTC Final: Sanjay Manjrekar raises questions on Ravindra Jadeja’s selection in the playing XI against New Zealand

Sanjay Manjrekar and Ravindra Jadeja

Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has once again opened up all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja’s place on the Indian side. Manjrekar expressed his disappointment at the selection of Jadeja in the playing XI for the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) Final against New Zealand.

Team India lost the WTC Final by eight wickets after producing a mediocre performance at the all-important clash. Jadeja too had an ordinary Test match as he scored just 15 and 16 runs respectively with the bat in the two innings. Also, he claimed the wicket of Tim Southee in NZ’s first innings.

The cricketer-turned-commentator once again questioned Jadeja’s spot in the side based on his batting skills in red-ball cricket. Sanjay Manjrekar asserted that picking Jadeja ‘backfired as mostly it does’. 

“If you have to look at how India went about before the game started, picking two spinners was always a debatable selection especially when the conditions were overcast and the toss was delayed by a day. They picked one player for his batting, which was Ravindra Jadeja, and his left-arm spin wasn’t the reason he was picked. He was picked for his batting and that is something that I am always against.

“You have got to pick specialist players in the team and if they felt that the pitch was dry and turning, they would have picked Ravindra Jadeja for his left-arm spin, along with Ashwin, that would have made sense. But they picked him for his batting and I think that backfired as mostly it does,” Manjrekar said in a recent video on ESPNcricinfo.

‘Things could have been different if India picked Hanuma Vihari’: Manjrekar

Hanuma Vihari
Hanuma Vihari

The 55-year-old batted for choosing Hanuma Vihari ahead of Ravindra Jadeja. Manjrekar highlighted that playing an extra batsman could have stretched India’s below-par total of 170 runs in the second innings. Vihari’s last international outing came during the iconic drawn Sydney Test against Australia where he held one end, despite a severe hamstring injury.

“Had they had a specialist batsman in Hanuma Vihari for example, who had a pretty good defence, that would have been handy. Maybe 170 could have been 220, 225 or 230, who knows?” Manjrekar questioned.

Also Read | WTC Final: ‘New Zealand played far better than India, deserve to be champions,’ says Harbhajan Singh

Also Read | WTC Final: Aakash Chopra rates the performances of Indian players against New Zealand