Ravindra Jadeja during the first Test at Hyderabad (BCCI)
Former England captain Michael Atherton is backing Ben Stokes and co. to overcome Team India in their five-match series. The visiting Englishmen won the first Test at Hyderabad despite trailing by 190 runs at the halfway stage of the game.
The Indian team, led by Rohit Sharma, not only took field at Vizag off the back of a 0-1 deficit but also without the services of injured senior cricketers KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja. Atherton, while assessing India’s current situation, underlined the importance of Jadeja and described the star all-rounder as the second-most valuable cricketer after Virat Kohli in the Indian team.
Atherton believes Jadeja’s absence will hurt India
Ravindra Jadeja was ruled out of India’s second Test match against England after he sustained a hamstring injury at Hyderabad last week. While Jadeja has already commenced his rehabilitation at the NCA, several reports indicate that the star all-rounder might well be ruled out of India’s remaining three fixtures as well.
Former England captain Michael Atherton believes Jadeja is India’s second-most valuable cricketer after Virat Kohli, and his absence further worsens hosts’ potential of making a comeback in the series against now-favourites England.
“India are not only 1-0 down, but are faced with rare uncertainty over the shape and balance of their team. Suddenly, it looks full of potential weaknesses. Jadeja is India's second-most valuable cricketer after Virat Kohli. He [Jadeja] has a fine record as an all-rounder – the differential in batting and bowling averages places him in the highest rank – and that balances the team beautifully," Atherton stated while writing in The Times column.
Michael Atherton added that even Ravindra Jadeja’s potential replacements will not be able to balance out both trades for Team India, as he believes Washington Sundar’s inclusion will weaken the bowling while Kuldeep Yadav’s inclusion will weaken the batting.
“Washington Sundar, the off-spinning all-rounder who was called into the squad this week, weakens the bowling; Saurabh Kumar, the left-arm all-rounder, weakens the batting, as would Kuldeep Yadav's wrist spin. All the problems lie with India,” he added.
In the absence of Ravindra Jadeja, Team India managed to tally 396 runs in their first innings of the second Test off the back of Yashasvi Jaiswal’s career-best 209. While his replacement Kuldeep Yadav failed to make any impact with the bat, he did manage to scalp English opener Ben Duckett early in the innings.
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