In the opinion of Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, he has a tinge of jealousy towards Ravindra Jadeja but over the past four to five years he has come to appreciate Jadeja. These remarks from Ashwin were made while he answered questions posed by journalists about Jadeja’s fielding skills during a post-match media briefing.
During the Chennai Test match against Bangladesh, both Jadeja and Ashwin played together and together they managed to defeat their opponents by 280 runs. In their first innings, these two players added 199 runs among themselves with Ashwin hitting a century whereas in the second innings they helped dismiss Bangladesh for only 234 by taking nine wickets between them.
“Jadeja is a blaze on the field. He’s like a projectile on the pitch. So, all in all, I envy him. I’m jealous of him, but I respect him completely. I have come to admire him for quite some time now, especially these last four or five years,” Ashwin said at the post-match press conference after the game.
When asked if he ever felt competitive towards Jadeja, Ashwin said that cricket’s history is full of such rivalries. It’s an arena speckled with instances like Tendulkar-Lara matchups or Wasim-Waqar confrontations or Muralitharan-Warne encounters where equals but may not even have gone beyond mutual admiration.
“Sometimes, while you are competing with your teammates in cricket, there is a desire to surpass each other, even within a team setting. It resembles siblings fighting side by side or such, right? And later on, admiration sets in,” said the spinner.
“Now that is admiration has gone one step further since I know that beating Jadeja is impossible. So I’m very much comfortable with who I am but enormously motivated by his achievements,” he continued.
While Ashwin emerged as the player of the match during his home test match, it was Jadeja who backed him up, saving India with bat during the first innings followed by Najmul Shanto Liton Das and Hasan Mahmud later on. According to Ashwin, when they batted together he drew inspiration from jadeja along whose composure he was able to maintain a calm demeanor.
“A very inspiring tale, indeed. I always felt that peace and tranquillity within the changing rooms whenever he walked onto the field with bat in hand, at least during the past three or four years.” This is what Ashwin had to say about his companion.
The second test between India and Bangladesh is set for September 27 in Kanpur.