Can Jadeja reduce pace of his deliveries in English conditions to remain effective?

Ravindra Jadeja’s inability to make decisive inroads on the fifth-day Headingley track raised the question why he could not be as effective as he is on Indian turners.

On the final day of the opening Test Ben Duckett reverse swept Jadeja out of the match in a chase of 371. Jadeja could not turn the ball from the rough created outside Duckett’s off-stump by the Indian pacers.

As India team is pondering over best combination, question arises if Jadeja should play at Edgbaston after a match-haul of 1/172 in 47 overs. On the fifth day he bowled 24 overs and managed 1/102.

If India are without Jasprit Bumrah, then logically, they shouldn’t be playing two finger spinners in Jadeja and Washington Sundar.

In that case Kuldeep Yadav and Washington (whose batting skills match Jadeja’s) can play since it would be difficult to stop rampaging English batters on a good batting surface without a wrist spinner.

If one takes a cursory look at Jadeja’s track record in Test matches in England, it is pretty deflating. Just 28 wickets in 13 Tests and not a single fifer. His strike-rate is a dismal 102.6 which is more than 17 overs for one wicket.

But why Jadeja is struggling?

In the second innings, Ducket attempted more than 30 reverse sweeps with fair degree of success and it can be attributed to the natural speed of Jadeja’s deliveries.

If one looks at classical left-arm Test spinners from India – from legendary Bishan Singh Bedi to the talented duo of Maninder Singh and Murali Kartik, all of them gave more revolutions to the ball and imparted a lot of side-spin while bowling in in England or while playing in English County cricket or league cricket.

In case of Jadeja his natural speed while landing the ball on the rough is becoming a problem, feels a lot of analysts.

“If a batter is intent on playing reverse sweep, he always likes pace on the deliveries. It then becomes easy to execute when those deliveries land on the rough outside the left-handed batter’s off-stump," a former left-arm spinner, who has extensive knowledge of English conditions but did not wish to be named, told PTI.

“If you observe minutely, deliveries bowled with a certain speed on the rough won’t turn. That was specifically what happened with Jadeja. He never reduced the pace on deliveries."               Why Bishan Bedi or even Maninder Singh were successful at Leeds on the 1986 tour? Maninder had figures of 4/26 in little over 16 overs on a damp fourth morning.

The reason was that their natural speed was on the slower side.

That allowed them to put more revs on the ball, keep it hanging in the air to create deception. To execute reverse sweep, the batter had to fetch the ball. If the pace is slow, the ball will jump and turn after hitting the rough, denying the batter any chance to use the pace.

In case of Jadeja, the problem is his muscle memory. He is so used to hitting the same area with more or less identical speeds, slowing it down considerably can lead to losing the length and bowling for hittable balls.

His arm speed needs to remain same as slowing the arm speed will also lead to slower release which isn’t permissable.

On rank turners, a bowler just need to land the ball in one spot on the stump channel and let the pitch do the rest. Even Jadeja won’t be able to tell which ball would come in with angle, and which one would turn away (from right handers) and which one would go straight.

During the 2013 Australia series then skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni wanted spinners to take lead from first hour. The whole pitch, not just sides becomes scuffed up and Jadeja became unplayable.

But in England, one needs to extract turn and not have set plans as conditions change so rapidly over five days.

Edgbaston will be a different challenge and Jadeja knows it too well as in 2022, Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root flayed him in the second innings where he went for 62 in 18.4 wicket-less overs.

Edgbaston is primarily a good batting strip and this is one ground where the team management might think twice before playing Jadeja. Lord’s brings with itself, a different set of challenges due to the famous slope on the Nursery end.

Left-arm spinners can historically face challenges while bowling up slope and have problems with landing.

Someone as crafty as Murali Kartik played three seasons for Middlesex and whenever he played Championship matches (red ball), he would prefer bowling from the Nursery End.

The best surface for Jadeja in the series could be Manchester where the surface on fourth and fifth day could aid spin at a higher pace.

Jadeja’s sound batting makes him a sought-after all-rounder but his bowling has to come through in remaining games.

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