Deep Dasgupta asserts Ravindra Jadeja is ‘definitely’ in Ben Stokes’ category as the former continues to shine across formats

Allrounder Ravindra Jadeja picked up from he where he left off in the Boxing Day Test. Returning from injury Jadeja notched a half-century and picked up three wickets. While the Saurashtra all rounder’s prowess with the ball was well known, his rise with the bat has been phenomenal over the years, Statistically, Jadeja is the best all-rounder going around in red-ball cricket since 2016. His batting average in the period stands at 46.29, trumping that of Ben Stokes‘ 42.34 and Shakib Al Hasan‘s 38.48.

Former India international Deep Dasgupta is mighty impressed with his recent rise as an allrounder. Dasgupta shares that it was a masterstroke to replace Virat Kohli with Jadeja in the second Test. And given his recent records, it was no surprise that he came out on top of the challenge.

“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 capitalised much in Test cricket.“

“But I always thought he has actually done better than a lot of batsmen in the last couple of years. He’s getting runs across all formats, and also as recently as last year he was the world’s top-ranked Test bowler,” Dasgupta told Sports Today.

That has changed in his batting lately

Dasgupta even went on compare Jadeja with the likes of Stokes, one of the best all-rounders going around. Stressing on the southpaw’s first-class triple tons, Dasgupta feels that a snub from the national side in 2017 lit a spark in Jadeja. And ever since, he has been working on his batting in a bid to make himself more valuable for the side.

Dasgupta further notes that it has led to a change in his approach towards batting. Jadeja now takes his time in the middle before he takes on the opposition. And the minute adjustment in his mindset hs worked wonders for him across formats. From being a bowling all-rounder, Jadeja has risen to prove himself as a much more balanced player.

“As of now the way he’s 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. 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 and I think that kind of prompted him. He wanted to make himself more useful to the team, not just with the ball but with the bat as well. Because Jadeja, I know for a fact, always wanted to be a batsman.“

“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,” Dasgupta said.

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