RAVINDRA Jadeja, the prolific Indian all-rounder, has been named as India’s ‘Most Valuable Test Player’ of the 21st century by Wisden.
The 31-year-old southpaw was always an effective bowler, but in the last two years or so, his batting has grown leaps and bounds. Virat Kohli, the Indian skipper, has even promoted him up the order to increase the scoring rate.
Last year, he became the second fastest Indian to pick up 200 wickets, accomplishing the milestone in 44 Tests. Ravi Ashwin is the fastest, having done it in only 37 games. To analyse Jadeja’s performance, Wisden used CricViz, a detailed analysis tool in cricket.
They formed an ‘MVP Rating’ and ranked a player’s impact on a game using a statistical model. In fact, Jadeja is the second most valuable player of the 21st century in the world with an MVP of 97.3, behind Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan.
“It might come as a surprise to see Ravindra Jadeja, India’s spin-bowling all-rounder, feature as India’s number one. After all, he’s not even always an automatic pick in their Test team. However, when he does play he is picked as a frontline bowler and has batted as high as No.6 – contributing to a very high match involvement,” Cricviz’s Freddie Wilde told Wisden.
“The 31-year-old’s bowling average of 24.62 is better than Shane Warne’s and his batting average of 35.26 is better than Shane Watson’s. His batting and bowling average differential of 10.62 runs is the second-best of any player this century to have scored more than 1 000 runs and taken 150 wickets. He is an all-rounder of the very highest quality,” he added.
In 49 Tests, Jadeja has 1 869 runs at an average of 35.26 to go with a century and 14 half-centuries. His only ton came against the West Indies back in October 2018 at the SCA Stadium in Rajkot. A strike-rate of 63.76 isn’t a poor one in Test cricket by any stretch of the imagination.
In bowling, Jadeja has 213 wickets with eight four-wicket hauls, nine five-wicket hauls and a 10-wicket haul. He made his Test debut back in 2012 and has been an indispensable member of the team in the longer format. (CricTracker)
