New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI) selection panel met on Sunday under the leadership of Sandeep Patil to pick the Indian squad for the 3 T20 international matches and the first three One day internationals(ODIs) against South Africa .
While most of the players who got selected were on the basis of their performance. But one cricketer whom every cricket fan was keen to know about was Ravindra Jadeja, whether he would be selected or not.
The left arm spin all-rounder has been out of favour since the end of 2015 World Cup in Australia. Interestingly Gurkeerat Singh Mann of Punjab who is also an all-rounder was selected in the Team India's squad after his brilliant allround performance against Bangladesh A.
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The selectors once again sidelined Jadeja after being ignored for the Zimbabwe tour, Bangladesh tour and the recently concluded tour to Sri Lanka. It has become more evident that the selectors wanted to send out a clear message to all the players that the only yardstick to get selected in the Indian team will be performance.
The critics have already started to say that Jadeja was in his comfort zone as both ex-BCCI president N Srinivasan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni were close to him, but now with the change of leadership in BCCI and the growing clout of Virat Kohli in the team Jadeja is finding it hard to make a claim in the team.
It has been a long time since India has been searching for that one 'genuine all-rounder' after Kapil Dev. Team India has been lucky to get good bowlers and batsmen but not so when it came to all-rounder. India has got the likes of Irfan Pathan, his elder brother Yusuf Pathan who were looked upon as the all-rounder but they also were not able to keep up the with the performance that the team expected from them.
The number 7 spot at which Jadeja generally comes to bat is a crucial position as he is left with few deliveries to score quick runs and being the impact player in the team. The 26 year old all-rounder has played 121 ODI matches and scored 1804 runs at an average of 32.21.
However what matters the most for an all-rounder like Jadeja is to have a good strike rate. It is this department where he lacked the most having a strike rate of 84.45.He has just one half-century to his name from 12 Tests, and just 10 from 121 ODIs.
In international T20 arena he has played 22 matches and scored just 84 runs with 25 being his highest score. He averages just 9.33 with a strike rate of 88.42.
In the bowling department, Jadeja took 144 wickets in ODIs with the best figures of 5/36.
Now, the biggest question that remains to be answered by Jadeja himself is that whether he will make a comeback when things are not going in his favour. However, for the Saurashtra-born cricketer the only thing which goes in his stride is that he is just 26 years old and can still make a comeback in the team.
