“If it’s a batting-friendly pitch, I become a batter. If it’s a bowler-friendly pitch, I become a bowler. It is simple.”

When Ravindra Jadeja was asked to shed light on his sustained all-round excellence during India’s second Test against West Indies in New Delhi last month, a throwaway response that evoked chuckles from the press pack was all that came by. It seems to be intrinsic to his nature to not harp on his skills, preferring instead to let his runs, wickets and catches do the talking.

Uncommon flexibility

Even then, the light-hearted reply begs the question: how many actually have the ability with both bat and ball to switch their primary skill based on the vagaries of the 22-yard strip?

On a track conducive to run-making, he is perfectly capable of batting in the top six and peeling off a century. And on a spin-friendly surface, he is equally adept at weaving a web and producing a five-wicket haul. Add his sharp ground fielding and safe catching to the mix, along with his athleticism, endurance and explosive burst of speed, and he clearly belongs to an exotic breed even within the category of all-rounders.

The wide-ranging attributes have helped him scale exemplary numbers in Tests: 3,990 runs, 338 wickets and 49 catches in 87 matches. As and when he crosses the 4,000-run mark, he will join a select gathering of all-rounders — Kapil Dev, Ian Botham and Daniel Vettori — to have scored these many runs and claimed 300-plus scalps in the classical format. With a two-Test series against South Africa beginning November 14 in Kolkata, the landmark is imminent.

Yet, as eye-catching as these figures are, it seems reductive to view the 36-year-old’s career purely through the prism of numbers. For as long as he has been around — his Test career will complete 13 years in December — he has been defined by his proclivity to seamlessly slot into different boxes, like water taking the shape of its container, rather than by any conscious pursuit of personal milestones.

“I won’t lie that I don’t think of personal milestones at all. It seems like it will feel good when such things happen. But once it happens, it feels the same as earlier. There is nothing new,” Jadeja explained in the press conference in October. “More than my own milestones… if I perform, does it make the team win? Are my runs and wickets having an impact on the team? Right now, my mindset has become like that. That’s more important. If you score runs and take wickets and the team loses, it has no relevance.”

That Jadeja, famously dubbed ‘rockstar’ in the infancy of his career by Shane Warne, has reached this sweet spot is a reflection of the maturity he has gained over time. Though his slim, supple frame continues to glide across the turf like it did in the reckless rush of youth, having not gained a visible shred of fat in all these years, he is now the oldest member of the Indian team.

In a year that has witnessed the retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from Tests — his old spin partner R. Ashwin also exited the stage last December — the all-rounder from Jamnagar, set to turn 37 on December 6, is remarkably enjoying his most prolific period with the bat. In eight Tests in 2025, he has scored 659 runs — more than in any other year — at an average of 82.37.

Putting it together

Akin to the ripening of a fruit, Jadeja took time to fuse all the ingredients as a batter at the highest level. Though the raw material was always there — three triple tons in First Class cricket by the time he turned out in Test whites — it was only towards the latter part of 2016, more than three years after making his debut, that Jadeja began to pull his weight with the willow. His batting has scaled up substantially since 2018, producing 2,814 runs in 52 Tests at an average of 44.66. All of his six Test hundreds have come in this period.

He was at his apogee in England this year. In a largely parched summer that facilitated a spree of runs, Jadeja duly filled his boots with 516 runs in 10 innings at 86. It included a streak of four successive half-centuries and was followed by a ton that contributed to India saving the Test in Manchester on the final day. A simple technique, devoid of exaggerated trigger movements, and a steely temperament were the driving forces in this purple patch.

The tour of the Old Blighty, however, wasn’t rewarding with the ball for Jadeja for obvious reasons. There are limitations that the left-arm spinner has as a wicket-taker outside the subcontinent, but even when the conditions are inimical, what he always offers is control from one end as the pacers probe from the other.

Numbers are instructive in this regard. Since January 2010, among bowlers with 200-plus Test wickets, Jadeja’s economy-rate of 2.59 runs per over is the lowest. In an era of rising run-rates, it is a testament to Jadeja’s accuracy in hitting a good length that he is still able to tie batters down. It makes him deadly on turning tracks at home where the benefit of natural variation becomes all the more pronounced, for even the bowler doesn’t always know whether the ball is going to grip and spin or skid into the pads after pitching.

The modus operandi has yielded majestic results, his 338 scalps in the format being the fifth-highest by an Indian behind Anil Kumble, Ashwin, Kapil and Harbhajan Singh.

In the broad spectrum of skills he brings to the table, there is also his contribution to India’s white-ball teams. His last act in T20Is before retiring along with Rohit and Kohli was lifting the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean last year. In ODIs, he hasn’t played since winning the Champions Trophy in March.

Strangely, despite his illustrious career, Jadeja hasn’t necessarily got his due from the public at large. Even when he was left out of India’s ODI squad for the recent series against Australia, although chief selector Ajit Agarkar stated that it had no bearing on the medium-term, it was no more than a footnote.

Legacy vs. popular memory

It is perhaps because, notwithstanding all the runs, wickets and catches in numerous victories for India, he isn’t associated with a singular defining moment of glory that lives on in popular memory. While he won Chennai Super Kings its fifth IPL title in 2023 by hitting a six and four off the last two deliveries in a cliffhanger, he has had some ‘so near and yet so far’ heartbreaks on national duty. The 2019 World Cup semifinal against New Zealand and the Lord’s Test this year spring to mind.

But in the grand scheme of things, this shouldn’t matter. Because whenever Jadeja hangs up his boots and reflects on whether his runs and wickets had an impact on the Indian team, the answer will be a resounding yes.

Published – November 08, 2025 12:15 am IST

V.V.S. Laxman pulls to the boundary on his way to a record 281 during the Second Test match against Australia played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata in March 2001
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Cricketers, like all athletes, have defining performances. The one that above all others reveals the essential style, the uniqueness, the essential person. These are often made in adverse conditions, against the run of play. Often they cause a captain to tell his dressing room, as Don Bradman did during an innings by Stan McCabe: “Come and watch this, you’ll never see the likes of it again.”

You can imagine skipper Sourav Ganguly saying something similar while V.V.S. Laxman was compiling 281 in Kolkata as India beat Australia after following on.

Not all defining innings led to victories. Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 at the Oval left the match drawn, while Sachin Tendulkar’s 136 in Chennai against Pakistan couldn’t prevent defeat. Was that Tendulkar’s best innings, or should that title go to his 143 against Australia in Sharjah, the so-called Desert storm in a One-Day International? Perhaps it was the 114 he made on a bouncy Perth track as a 19-year-old?

Not all such innings are centuries either. Gundappa Vishwanath’s unbeaten 97 in the Chennai Test against the West Indies was more Vishy-like than even his double century against England.

It is not always remembered that India won Laxman’s Test thanks as much to Harbhajan Singh’s 13 wickets including India’s first hat-trick. That must rate as the off-spinner’s defining performance — just as Anil Kumble’s 10 for 74 in Delhi in the second innings against Pakistan will remain his.

Defining performance

Although Kapil Dev once took nine wickets in a Test innings, his defining performance may be the unbeaten 175 he made against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup? My favourite, however, was his 129 in Port Elizabeth on India’s first tour of South Africa where he seemed to be playing at a different level from everybody else. The next highest score was 17.

The Kolkata Test also saw the quintessential Rahul Dravid — calm, supportive, classical — as he made 180 in a partnership with Laxman. Dependable, as a current commercial featuring him has it. There was a brief ‘Indiranagar ka goonda’ in one of his early Tests, at the Wanderers where he made 148 after showing fast bowler Allan Donald who was boss!

The statistician Anantha Narayanan wrote in a study recently that he calculates Ravichandran Ashwin will finish with 656 Test wickets, more than any other Indian. Ashwin reinvents himself regularly, and his defining performance will probably come closer to the end when he has mastered all his variations and worked out his tricks.

I once wrote — my only excuse being I was young and raw — that Sunil Gavaskar’s batting, like history, repeats itself. It was a silly thing to say, and I was taken to task by the sports editor. No two innings by any batter is exactly alike, and part of a reporter’s job is to train himself to notice the differences.

Variety and surprise are keys to mastery

If Gavaskar hit a straight drive off every ball that was pitched up to him, or Virat Kohli played that unique on-drive suggestive of a tennis player’s cross-court shot, cricket would be so much poorer. Variety and surprise are keys to mastery.

Every player is capable of one moment of greatness in a career, but the best players have many of them, and closer together.

After he had made 192 in Auckland where he dominated the New Zealand bowlers, Mohammad Azharuddin was asked which was his favourite stroke. “The one that goes exactly where I want it to,” he answered. Virender Sehwag would agree.

His 195 at Melbourne where he perished attempting the six that would get him to his double, was probably that batter’s defining innings. He shook the bowling by the scruff of the neck, hit 25 fours and five sixes and was out hitting a full toss to long on. He was a stranger to caution.

In his first Test as captain, Virat Kohli made two centuries, the second of which nearly took India to victory. In the end they fell short by 48 runs, but Kohli’s aggressive approach as batter and captain captured the cricket world’s imagination. Especially since it all began with a knock on the helmet from a Mitchell Johnson express.

Will someone else have the same list? Unlikely. And that’s part of the joy of sport.