What a wonderful comeback the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy is making for Ravindra Jadeja. While the series marked the all-rounder’s return to international cricket after a long injury lay-off, he hasn’t looked out of touch from day one and in fact won the Player of the Match award in each of the first two Tests India won. in Nagpur and Delhi respectively.
Even though it was not a good opening day for the hosts at the Holkar Stadium in Indore on Wednesday where they were bowled out for just 109 despite electing to bat, it was Jadeja’s four-wicket haul at the end of the day’s play. That was probably his biggest positive from the day’s play.
The left-arm spinner joined India’s legendary all-rounder Kapil Dev in the elite list. The 34-year-old became only the second Indian to score more than 5000 international runs as well as take 500 wickets. He achieved the milestone by getting rid of Travis Head, who was the first Australian batsman to be dismissed with just 12 runs on the board.
Apart from Jadeja and Dev, other all-rounders to achieve the feat are England’s Ian Botham, South Africa’s Shaun Pollock, Sri Lanka’s Chaminda Vaas, New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori, Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan and Pakistan’s Wasim Akram, Imran Khan and Shahid. Afridi is included.
Coming back to the Indore Test, after getting the first wicket early, the home team may have thought they could claw their way back into the day, especially when Marnus Labuschagne was bowled soon after the wicket of Head, but replays confirmed that It was a no-ball as Jadeja overstepped. It was a big turning point on Day 1 as Labuschagne (31) shared a 96-run stand for the second wicket with Usman Khawaja (60) to ensure Australia had the lead at stumps.
Even though both Khawaja and Labuschagne, along with Steve Smith (27), returned to the pavilion by the end of play on the first day, with all of Jadeja’s wickets falling, Australia were 156/4 at stumps, with a lead of 47 runs. Peter Handscomb (7*) and Cameron Green (6*) were out in the middle.
