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India will be without all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja in their second Test against England in Visakhapatnam. Jadeja has been one half of one of the most successful bowling pairings of all-time since he made his Test debut, along with Ravichandran Ashwin. Add to this the fact that he is a genuine batter and has statistically been among India’s best in the fielding department, and it becomes clear that he occupies a niche in Indian cricket that few others have.
Jadeja has 280 Test wickets in 69 matches at an average of 24.42. He has a batting average of 36.16 and has scored 2983 runs with three centuries and 20 half-centuries. In addition to this, Jadeja is often rated as the best fielder in the world and has made significant impact in matches with his gun of an arm. With the Indian team slowly entering a phase of transition, particularly in the batting order, Jadeja’s contribution in the lower-middle order have been invaluable in recent years.
However, the fact remains that the all-rounder himself is not getting any younger. Watch him run around in the field and bowl endless spells. It may not be so apparent, but Jadeja is 35 years old. Where it does become apparent though is when one takes a look at the number of times he has missed matches for India across formats due to injuries in recent years.
A sign of times
This time, it’s a hamstring trouble that has kept Jadeja out of the second Test. He returned to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru, posting a photo from the facility with the caption ‘Home for the next few days’ with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) saying in a press note that Jadeja and KL Rahul have been ruled out for the match in Visakhapatnam. The first Test was a mixed bag for Jadeja. He took three wickets for 88 runs in 18 overs of the first innings and was then India’s highest scorer in the first innings with 87 off 180 balls.
However, Jadeja’s fortunes seemed to take a turn for the worse after that, much like how the rest of the Indian team’s did. He conceded 131 runs in 34 overs for two wickets and fell for just 2 as India lost the match by 28 runs. Jadeja had never conceded more in a single innings in his Test career than what he did in the second innings in Hyderabad.
This marks the end of an injury-free period for Jadeja that started in February last year. Before that, he was out for eight months due to a knee injury that required him to go under the knife. He sustained it during the 2022 Asia Cup which led to him missing the T20 World Cup later that year and a number of subsequent bilateral series. He was out for two months earlier in 2022 due to a rib injury after a rather disastrous but brief stint as Chennai Super Kings captain in the 2022 season of the IPL, and on the sidelines before that – from November 2021 to February 2022 – due to an issue with his forearm.
Regardless of whether an all-rounder bowls spin or pace, the wear and tear that comes with the added workload shows up on their bodies at some point in their Test careers. One of the greatest examples of that is the man leading England currently in India. Repeated injuries has hugely curtailed Ben Stokes’ ability to bowl in Test matches and he played as a specialist batter in the first Test. It is unlikely that this situation would change any time soon in the series. Hardik Pandya is working his way back from an injury he sustained during the World Cup but the India all-rounder has not played Test cricket since September 2018.
There were rumours of Jadeja considering quitting Test cricket to prolong his limited overs career back in 2021. He seemed to respond to those rumours with a post that said: “Long way to go”. It has been a long time since and Jadeja has picked many more injuries in the intervening period as well. There may still be time for the moment to arrive but these injuries could just be a sign of the era of Ravindra Jadeja in whites for India slowly drawing to an end.
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