He has had a torrid year but this week was different. Ravi Jadeja seems to always save his best performances for India and he certainly had a long time to save up the skill needed displayed in the final Test. So far 2018 has seen Jadeja represent Saurashtra and Chennai - both teams reached the finals of the Vijay Hazare Trophy and the IPL respectively, however as the competitions developed the spinner fell increasingly more out of favour with the management. This then led on to his call up for the England tour, a tour in which he was overlooked up until last weekend's dead rubber. Indian fans were left wondering what could have been as Jadeja combined wicket taking with a tenacious batting performance the likes of which the middle order had been lacking throughout the series. It must be frustrating for Jadeja and the teams that he represents that he seemingly performs very well in failing teams but if there is a whiff of success his ability drops quicker than a Muralitharan catch. The scale of Jadeja's performance is shown in how he has rocketed up the overall league. Languishing in second bottom at the start of the week, his 374 points have moved him up three places - and puts Steve Smith and David Warner back in the relegation places alongside a potentially returning George Bailey.
No one can deny who won the three way melee between Buttler, Kohli and Root this week. After a series that might generously be referred to as underwhelming for the England captain, Joe Root 'did a Jadeja' and saved his best until last with 200 points added to his total in the Final Test. Throughout the Summer the tussle between the two captains seeemd so tight but last week I claimed that Kohli was the undisputed winner....but how clear cut is that? Let's evaluate the series. The first way of gauging success is the raw points each competitor picked up in the ten weeks the Indians have been here. Perhaps surprisingly it is Root who comes out atop that particular league with 1078 compared to Kohli's 1004. Buttler rather lags behind with 753. 1-0 Root. What about highest individual weekly performance? The same pattern emerges. Root's 424 during the ODIs is nearly double the weekly best of Kohli (270) and Buttler (235). The last measurement we will look at is their movement up the table. Buttler began the series out of the Test team but the highest scoring of the trio in fourth place, Kohli was in seventh and Root in ninth. As it stands this week Buttler has made a negative impact on his position, largely due to the surge of Jofra Archer than anything else. Kohli and Root have both moved up a place so the gap remains the same. So it seems pretty decisive that, despite the praise for Kohli and the derision for Root, it is the England captain AND the England team who have had a good Summer.
A 'ripper' is what I believe he would call it. Jadeja is not the only low scorer of 2018 to have an incongruously high scoring week. Mitchell Marsh returned from injury last week with the score of nine. Using this as something of a jumping board, the Australia A captain decided to push on a bit this week and ended with 220 more, claiming his best score of 2018. A century with the bat plus a little bit of tentative bowling saw the Aussie comfortably head and shoulders over the unproved India A team despite his team's eventual defeat. He has also got his head and shoulders over some of the competition at the foot of the table, leapfrogging his injured brother and becoming the leader of that little pack at the foot of the table. It is starting to get a little late in the year for anyone to make a huge push up the table from this sort of position but if he keeps fit he may see some cricket in the Australian Sumer to help him up to a mid table finish.
Week
Ravi Jadeja - 374
Simon Harmer - 303
Mitchell Marsh - 229
Jofra Archer - 220
Joe Root - 200
Jeetan Patel - 159
Jos Buttler - 131
Sunil Narine - 128
Shakib Al Hasan - 60
Virat Kohli - 49
Dean Elgar - 31
Hashim Amla - dnp
Ravi Ashwin - dnp
George Bailey - dnp
Quinton De Kock- dnp
AB De Villiers- dnp
JP Duminy - dnp
Aaron Finch- dnp
Rashid Khan - dnp
Nathan Lyon - dnp
Shaun Marsh - dnp
Steve Smith - dnp
David Warner - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Overall
Simon Harmer - 5466
Jeetan Patel - 4818
Rashid Khan - 4330
Jofra Archer - 4042
Jos Buttler - 3974
Virat Kohli- 3502
Sunil Narine- 3380
Joe Root - 3345
Aaron Finch - 3343
Kane Williamson - 3203
Shakib Al Hasan - 2642
Ravi Ashwin - 2581
JP Duminy - 2336
Hashim Amla - 2091
Quinton de Kock - 2020
AB De Villiers- 2010
Dean Elgar- 1840
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Mitchell Marsh - 1663
Ravi Jadeja - 1600
Shaun Marsh- 1498
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 631
No comments:
Post a Comment