Ravindra Jadeja only managed to pick one wicket in the WTC final, scoring 15 and 16 runs respectively in the first and second innings.
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Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar recently let his thoughts be known about the Indian team’s selection for the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final. He was not a fan of Jadeja’s inclusion in the lineup solely due to his batting abilities. Manjrekar reckons that the Indian selectors should have chosen a player suited to the English conditions, rather than take a gamble on an all-rounder. Jadeja did deliver a woeful performance in the match against New Zealand. He only managed to pick one wicket and scored 15 and 16 runs respectively in the first and second innings. Jadeja’s recent performances might be suggestive of an upward curve in his form especially with the bat, but it was not enough to convince Manjrekar of his selection.
“If you have to look at how India went about before the game started, picking two spinners was always a debatable selection especially when the conditions were overcast and the toss was delayed by a day. They picked one player for his batting, which was Jadeja, and his left-arm spin wasn’t the reason he was picked. He was picked for his batting and that is something that I am always against,” Manjrekar said on ESPNcricinfo.
“You have got to pick specialist players in the team and if they felt that the pitch was dry and turning, they would have picked Jadeja for his left-arm spin, along with Ashwin, that would have made sense. But they picked him for his batting and I think that backfired as mostly it does,” he added.
It was a fair point that he made. The Ageas Bowl track offered little to no turn, but the seamers enjoyed incredible movement. Indian pacers like Mohammad Shami and Ishant Sharma had a positive impact on the match as they picked four and three wickets respectively during the Kiwis’ first innings. They failed to make it count in the second, but it can be argued that the total to chase down was too low. For a side like New Zealand, that is so capable of playing in windy conditions, it would have taken a while for the bowlers to find their rhythm anyway.
Looking back, Manjrekar feels that the inclusion of a specialist Test cricket batter, like a Hanuma Vihari, would have made a better impact on the game. Vihari has not played too many Test matches for India yet but is undoubtedly an extremely skilled batter.
“Had they had a specialist batsman in Hanuma Vihari for example, who had a pretty good defence, that would have been handy. Maybe 170 could have been 220, 225 or 230, who knows?” Manjrekar stated.
The former cricketer hoped that India does not do what England has historically done, in the future. What he is talking about is picking an all-rounder over a specialist bowler or batter, just because they can both bowl and bat. He is of the belief that it rarely works out.
“But I hope India don’t do what England have historically done, pick somebody because there is another strength that they have and that strength might just come to good use, but very rarely it does when it’s a pressure game,” Manjrekar concluded.
