Kedar Jadhav's bowling action: There is a method to the madness
India achieved a historic feat of winning two ODIs in a span of 24 hours. Indian team bowled out Pakistan for 162 and then chased the target in 29 overs with 8 wickets in hand. The contest was billed as a competition between the Pakistan bowling and Indian batting. But the total never really challenged the Indian batsmen led beautifully by Rohit Sharma.
The Indian bowling lacked vision against Hong Kong but they were at their creative best against Pakistan. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Kedar Jadhav were the architects of an inspired bowling performance. Bhuvi with his swing early on and Jadhav with his unconventional bowling style in the middle overs.
Kedar Jadhav who had to miss the IPL due to surgery revealed after the match that he is feeling fully fit now and he is trying everything possible to have a long career with the Indian team.
Many will not remember that Kedar Jadhav had given the reason for his bizarre bowling action while he was out of IPL. Kedar Jadhav had revealed that off spin bowling is pretty common and most part-time bowlers resort to it. So he tried to add creativity to his bowling. He practised different release points in the nets. The slow sidearm bowling has been used by all Indian captains under whom Jadhav has played, namely, Dhoni, Virat and now Rohit Sharma.
Technique wise Kedar bowls Malinga-like round-arm style with the difference being that of pace. While Malinga bowls at a decent pace for the batsmen to work with, Kedar keeps it slow and wicket to wicket. The fact that Kedar is considered to be a part-time bowler, batsmen try to attack his unconventional bowling, giving Kedar ample chances to take wickets.
In an ODI against Australia played in 2017, Kedar had even trapped one of the most consistent batsmen in world cricket, Steven Smith, leg before wicket. He is not just taking the wickets of tailenders. He has taken the wickets of middle order batsmen of New Zealand, Australia and now Pakistan.
The conditions in Dubai will definitely help Rohit Sharma to take full advantage of a bowler like Jadhav. For the opposition though, a strategy needs to be in place to face Kedar or else he will keep on adding on to his amazing list of wickets. The fact that he doesn’t turn the ball much also helps him as batsmen try to predict the turn and are always playing the risky game of assuming how much the ball will turn.
Kedar Jadhav has picked up 19 wickets from the 40 ODIs he has played at an impressive average of 32. His importance as a bowler in English conditions will make it harder for him to be on the World Cup plane next year and so it becomes imperative for him to perform consistently with the bat too as the Indian middle order is still in an experimental stage with many places up for grabs.