Kedar Jadhav says it was MS Dhoni's idea to use him as a bowling option

Kedar Jadhav has been instrumental with the ball

After 45 days of being in India, it now boils down to this for New Zealand. Whitewashed 3-0 in Tests, they have made a fine comeback in the five-match ODI series, which is locked at 2-2, heading into the final game in Vizag on Saturday.

The hosts have had their moments in the series, but have been found wanting at other instances as well and will know very well that they will need to be on top of their game on Saturday.

One of the unorthodox things that skipper MS Dhoni has tried and succeeded from the start is the use of Kedar Jadhav with the ball in hand. The 31-year-old has been very effective with his off-spin and is the fourth highest wicket-taker in the series, with six scalps in four matches.

Not many would have thought about using Jadhav as productively as Dhoni has in this series and speaking ahead of the fifth ODI, the Maharashtra batsman admitted that it was indeed the captain and the coach who were the brains behind him bowling and added that a combination of his action and pace variation have been the key to his success.

“I think its a bit of both. A bit of my action and pace I vary according to every batsman, which makes it difficult. It was Mahi Bhai and coach’s idea to give me the ball. Obviously, he wants any of the top 5 batsmen who can bowl, which helps when any of the other bowlers have a bad day,” Jadhav said the press conference on Friday.

With the bat,however, Jadhav has not been as effective and he feels that for the likes of himself and Manish Pandey, it was about learning from mistakes and added they had to make the most of the chances that they get.

“Obviously the opportunity has been missed, especially in the last game. But it’s still early stages for Manish (Pandey) and me. We need to grab whatever opportunity is thrown at us. We need to learn quickly from the opportunities we have missed. That’s what international cricket is all about – delivering when it matters most to the team,” he said.

There has been some talks about India being over-reliant on Virat Kohli with the bat, but Jadhav felt that while the 27-year-old was a very good player, there were other fine players in the team, who also had a role to play.

“Virat is a great player and it’s always nice if he scores. It makes life easy for the batsmen coming next to get whatever runs (possible). But it’s not like that (we're overdependent on him). We have too many quality batsmen in the team and we need to deliver whenever we get the opportunity,” Jadhav said.