The Legend of Sir Jadeja

Jokes about Ravinder Jadeja have been doing on the same rounds on lines similar to Rajanikanth Jokes for the last couple of months. A friend of mine, who is not a cricket fan, asked me a few days back what the fuss was all about. After giving him a detailed explanation, I thought of posting it on my blog, for the benefit of other non-cricket-crazy junta.

Ravinder Jadeja has been getting selected for the indian ODI team since 2009 as an "all rounder". Although his bowling is acceptable, his batting has not been good enough. Till recently, he used to keep getting selected without putting in any good performances. Apparently, this was because Dhoni liked "his potential". So much so that Dhoni also got Jadeja into the CSK IPL team.  General cricket fans were frequently frustrated with his non-performance in the side and jokes started being made on him and Dhoni in social media (like the Dhoni proposing Jadeja for Indian President etc. etc.). 

In the 2012-13 season, Jadeja made 2 triple centuries in domestic cricket. Someone making 2 triples in the same season is very uncommon. And that too by a batsman who does not look like a good player. This was analogues to Irfan Pathan or Harbhajan Singh making 2 triple hundreds, when none of the great indian batsman of the past have not done so. Part of the reason was the extreme flat nature of the wickets he played on for his side Saurashtra.

Then he got selected in the Australia Test matches, again against popular wisdom. Making runs in flat wickets against poor bowling in domestic cricket is one thing. Test cricket is another thing. Though his batting was poor in Tests, he surprised people by bowled very well (on tailor made pitches for spinners, it must be said) .

After that, people started making Jadeja jokes on the same lines as Chuck Norris and Rajanikanth. His CSK team mates like Dhoni and Raina also joined in with some tweets about his "super-natural" powers, calling him Sir Jadeja.

And the "last straw", was this.

Needing 2 runs to win of the last ball. Jadeja was caught on third-man. But the umpire called a no-ball. And they won the match. Now people have a real example of Jadeja's "super-powers" :-) He won them a match inspite of getting out on the last ball.

The legend of Jadeja is growing !!