India vs Australia: Trolled during injury rehab, Ravindra Jadeja bounces back to bowl India to a match-winning position against Australia

There could be no more tenacious a cricketer, for all his flash and flamboyance afar the field, than Jadeja in modern cricket, from his humble upbringing in Jamnagar to his troubled cricketing years to his steady evolution as one of the country’s finest-ever cross-format all-rounders. Not just a master of comebacks, but a master of evolutions too.

That 𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 when @imjadeja let one through Steve Smith’s defence! 👌👌

Follow the match ▶️ https://t.co/SwTGoyHfZx #TeamIndia | #INDvAUS | @mastercardindia pic.twitter.com/Lj5j7pHZi3

— BCCI (@BCCI) February 9, 2023

His eleventh five-wicket haul marked another step of evolution in his Test career—from a third-fourth innings hangman he has metamorphosed into an every-innings executioner; from a ruthless destroyer on crumbling surfaces to a peerless any-surface devastator. Of his 247 Test wickets only 56 have arrived in the first innings of a Test, a phase wherein he has also bowled the fewest overs (585.5 off 2480.3 overs), which reveals how captains have used him as well. That only once before has he grabbed a five-for in the first innings—against Australia in Ranchi—nails the point. But that effort took 49.3 overs and arrived late on the second day. Nagpur was the first time he had ever picked a five-wicket haul on the first day, four coming in an engrossing, potentially match-defining second session, which Australia began on 76 for 2 and ended at 174 for eight.

The deck might not have been a classical day one subcontinent one; the bounce was cruelly low, the turn was turgidly slow, the stray ball leapt off length, but still this was far from a characteristic Jadeja-wreck wicket. Perhaps more instructively, he bargained most of his wickets with his infinitely-evolving craft and ever-growing wisdom than from any assistance off the surface. All spinners coaxed varying degrees of assistance from the pitch, but only Jadeja discovered the perfect length, only he possessed the persistence and consistency to alter the length, which he did with devastating subtlety. All of his colleagues had the tools on this surface, but only he alone knew how and when to use those.

Jadeja is not a moments bowler, not a highlight-reel one, but one that you should watch the entire spell to fully grasp the art and nuance. For instance, the Steve Smith dismissal. Throughout the spell, he kept chipping away on little aspects, never letting him bed down. Just when Smith assumed he had a measure of him, Jadeja would sow doubts in his mind with a surprise change of length or angle or pace, or release positions by manoeuvring the depth of the crease. He would later explain his method, with characteristic minimalism: “I preferred bowling stump to stump, because on a low bounce track, there are more chances of leg before and bowled and luckily, I got a few lbws and bowled, so that makes me happy.” But his method was not as simple as he made it sound.

🗣️🗣️ I found great rhythm with my bowling today#TeamIndia all-rounder @imjadeja reflects on his super five-wicket haul on Day 1️⃣ of the first #INDvAUS Test.@mastercardindia pic.twitter.com/PBo8camct0

— BCCI (@BCCI) February 9, 2023

There was also the keenness, often exuberance too: “ I loved the rhythm with which I bowled and the ball came out of my hand quite well.” A typical bowler thing to say, but when you are coming back, after five doubt-ridden months, all those little things matter.

In the first session, he had stroked a brace of gorgeous fours, one a back-foot punch of a short-of-length ball and the other a golf-club whip over midwicket, but later in the spell, he beat with a ball that drifted in and spun sharply past the bat, before a straighter one, perhaps a natural variation whirred past his off-stump. But in the second session, Smith was wary of his threat and hence looking to avert danger rather than attack him to submission. Maybe it was the Marnus Labuschagne dismissal that was haunting him. Batsmen could sense if a bowler is in an inspirational mood.

It did not help that the first ball he faced from Jadeja whirled in and spun past his outstretched bat. Smith blew his cheeks. This session, Jadeja was slower through the air. A no-ball and a full ball followed. The next one—a but similar to the first in length—took his edge that reached the first slip on three-bounce. Then pounced the wicket ball—again of similar pace, but a few centimetres shorter in length. Smith first misjudged the flight, then the direction of the turn.

Usually when Jadeja turns the ball back, the shoulder-snap is quicker, the ball is brisker, like the crack of doom. So Smith presumed that the ball would either hold its line or spin away. So he thrust his bat, for even if he edges the lack of bounce would mean that the ball would not carry to the slip. But to his despair, the ball turned back just adequately to sneak through his bat and pad to hit the stumps. Smith bore the devastated look of a ship-wrecked sailor. The ship he was steering was sinking.

Post lunch, when it all seemed like smooth-sailing, Jadeja emerged from the bed of the ocean to topple the ship. Just five overs ago had he ejected the hitherto sumptuous Labuschagne and Matthew Renshaw off successive balls. Labuschagne, who had earlier flicked him against the turn, was foxed by a change of length. The flight lured him into the lunge, but the ball never arrived, and when it did, it was far from where Australia’s most assured batsman had anticipated. He kept lunging, dragging his back-foot out of the crease, and then watched agonisingly the ball whistling past him for the quick hands of KS Bharat to whip off the bails. Renshaw merely played down the wrong line, as yet again Jadeja made things happen, as he often does, but seldom on the first day. Once the core of Australia’s nucleus disassembled, Australia fell apart, but for Alex Carey’s 36-run counterpunch.

Jadeja would celebrate each wicket with a roar and fist-pump. This was how much each of those five wickets meant for him. Ridiculed, parodied, trolled, and written off, this is when Jadeja channels his tenacity, his drive to prove the world wrong, the narrative arc that defines his career. And at that moment when the sun kissed him on his forehead and the scream of adulation pierced his ears, he might have felt a moment of pure joy.