The title of this article will surprise many cricket fans. “How about Kapil Dev or for that matter even Vinoo Mankad?” one may ask. However, statistics don’t lie but before that, a quick focus on what puts Ravindra Jadeja in a class of his own which no other all-rounder in the world has ever come to emulate — Jadeja the Fielder!

Never since India’s Hemu Adhikari has any fielder in the world shown such consistent accuracy in throwing the cricket ball from any part of the cricket field as has Ravindra Jadeja.

Currently rated among the best all-rounders in the world, no all-rounder of such a high status has ever glorified the game of cricket merely by his fielding as has India’s Ravindrasinh Anirudhsinh Jadeja. Chasing every ball like a cheetah, grabbing every catch as firmly as the jaws of a crocodile and throwing every ball with the accuracy and speed of a bullet, no batsman ever dares to take a chance with another run once the ball is in the hands of Jadeja.

Most of Jadeja’s performances have been overshadowed by some other member of the team performing better in the same match but when seen in totality over the years, Jadeja’s performance in Test cricket as well as in One Day Internationals has had a major role to play in India remaining in the top echelons of the game. With a batting average of 33.26 over 44 Test matches and a bowling average of 24.22, Jadeja has a all-rounder’s quotient of 1.37. Kapil Dev finished with a career quotient of 1.12 while Vinoo Mankad was lagging far behind with just 0.97. In fact, the one closest to Jadeja in Indian cricket is his contemporary Ravichandran Ashwin who has a career quotient of 1.160. Even the great Sir Richard Hadlee finished his career at 1.22 and Sir Ian Botham at 1.18.

Some of the all-rounders, all around the world, who have a superior career all-rounders’ quotient than Ravindra Jadeja are Sir Gary Sobers with 1.70, Imran Khan with 1.65, Jacques Kallis with 1.65, Kieth Miller 1.61 and Shaun Pollock with 1.46. Born on 6 December 1988, in Jamnagar, Ravindra Jadeja had a very modest family background with his father working as a security guard. While his father wanted him to join the Army, young Ravindra had other ideas and went to form a part of the Indian Under-19 cricket team that went on to win the World Cup in 2008 in Malaysia under the captaincy of Virat Kohli. The year 2008 was definitely auspicious for Jadeja as, playing for Saurashtra, he went on to become the leading wicket taker in the Ranji Trophy during the year 2008-09 and bagged the Madhavrao Scindia Award for the performance. Thereafter, an international debut for the talented Jadeja was just a matter of time.

Read the full article by subscribing to the print magazine or the digital edition.

The post Ravindra Jadeja: India’s greatest all-rounder of all time appeared first on The Teenager Today.

It was mainly in the 1970s that women’s cricket began to get noticed in India. It was in 1976 that the Indian women’s cricket team, under the leadership of Shantha Rangaswamy, beat their West Indian counterparts in Patna, and the very next year, the Indian skipper also became the first Indian woman to score a Test Century which she did against New Zealand and that too on foreign soil.

While Shantha Rangaswamy was lost in oblivion after her cricketing career another of her contemporaries, Diana Eduljee continues to be in the limelight. The left arm spinner being a part of the Indian Railways continued to participate actively and was also awarded the Padma Shri in 2002. In 2017, she was appointed to the BCCI administration panel by the Supreme Court of India and was largely instrumental in the temporary suspension of two Indian players who are purported to have made some unwarranted comments during a TV show.

Almost two decades after these stalwarts of Indian women’s cricket, Anjum Chopra once again rekindled the weakening flame of women’s cricket in India. While she continues to be heard by cricket fans as an able TV commentator she had the distinction of being the first Indian woman to get an international appointment when she worked with Cricket South Africa women’s team as a technical consultant in 2012-2013.

Now, that we are in the age of Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, the former has definitely taken Indian women’s cricket to new heights with a runner-up position for our team in the World Cup. Already termed as the Woman Tendulkar, Mithali has an average of 51.00, in both, Tests and Women ODIs and over 37 in T20 Internationals. With more than 6,700 runs in her bag, she is the only lady to have scored more than 6,000 runs in WODIs and 2,000 runs in WT20 Internationals and the only woman cricketer to have played in more than 200 WODIs. The achievements of Jhulan Goswami ought to go along with Mithali as the former has the distinction of having bagged the maximum wickets in WODIs. In fact, March 2012 was a red letter period for Indian Women’s cricket when Mithali and Jhulam held the ICC’s top spot in batting and bowling at the same time.

With her swashbuckling batting style, Harmanpreet Kaur became the first Indian lady to play in the Australian Big Bash League only to be followed by a youngster named Smriti Mandhana. Smriti has started a new glorious chapter in the history of Indian Women’s cricket. In June 2018, the BCCI named Smriti as the Best Women’s International Cricketer and the correctness of the decision can be gauged from the fact that in December 2018, the International Cricket Council awarded Smriti Mandhana with the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint Award for the Best Female Cricketer of the Year. She was also named the ODI Player of the Year by the ICC at the same time; a never-before honour for any Indian woman.

Read the full article by subscribing to the print magazine or the digital edition.

The post Smriti Mandhana: A rising star of women’s cricket appeared first on The Teenager Today.