‘Jadeja himself doesn’t know, how will the batter?’: Shastri’s tracer bullet remark on Steve Smith during World Cup 2023
Before Virat Kohli and KL Rahul revived India’s innings in its World Cup 2023 opener on Sunday, veteran spinner Ravindra Jadeja demolished Australia’s world-class batting order to turn the heavyweight clash into a low-scoring affair at Chepauk. Jadeja bagged the game-changing wicket of batting superstar Steve Smith to earn plaudits from Ravi Shastri as the former Indian head coach was mighty impressed with the bowling heroics of the senior all-rounder in Chennai.
Shastri was mighty impressed with Jadeja(Reuters-PTI)
Bamboozling Smith in match No.5 of the World Cup, Jadeja outsmarted the Aussie batter by bowling an absolute ripper to disturb the top of the off stump. Reflecting on Jadeja’s brilliant delivery to dismiss Smith, former India head coach Shastri branded the Australian batter as the senior spinner’s ‘bunny’ in world cricket. Interestingly, Jadeja has dismissed Smith on 11 occasions in international cricket. Former England pacer Stuart Broad has dismissed Smith the most number of times (14) in world cricket.
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‘Steve Smith is Ravindra Jadeja’s bunny’
“He (Jadeja) has dismissed him (Smith) 10 to 12 times. He (Smith) is his bunny. It is not that easy to play such a delivery because of the speed at which he bowls. As a batter, you don’t know which ball is going to turn and which ball will go straight. He (Jadeja) himself said in the interview that he doesn’t know which ball will turn and which will go straight. If he doesn’t know, how will the batter know? So he plays inside the line at times and outside the line on other occasions,” Shastri told Star Sports.
In the 150th One Day International (ODI) meeting between the two heavyweights of the game, Jadeja helped India in dismissing Australia for a paltry total of 199 at Chennai. Jadeja bagged the crucial wickets of Smith (46) Marnus Labuschagne (27) and Alex Carey (0) on a tacky Chepauk track. The 34-year-old picked up three wickets and leaked 28 runs in 10 overs. This was also Jadeja’s first three-wicket haul at the ICC World Cup. “My plan was to bowl on the stump and luckily the ball to Smith turned more. I thought this was a typical Test match wicket. We should not do any experiment and bowl stump-to-stump,” Jadeja said.
