Back on the rails, Jadeja turning tracks

Most of the times these days in Rajkot, Ravindra Jadeja is found in his Saurashtra Cricket Association tracksuit and a turban-like cloth tied around his head. It is not the turban Rajputs wear. It is the cloth he took with him to the Mata No Madh, a village in Kutch desert that houses the temple of Ashapura Mata, the deity the Jadejas worship. He walked nearly 350km, his father, a few relatives, a truck full of supplies and cooks, in tow. They would walk around 40km every night, stopping for rest at various places along the way. The cloth is what you spread in front of the deity, asking for her blessings.

Jadeja keeps the cloth with him everywhere he goes. He wears it to the ground, trades it for sporting headgear when playing, and comes back with the cloth tied around his head like a turban. He wears it when he goes out. He wears it when he goes home to Jamnagar, 80km from Rajkot. Ask him about the cloth, and he holds it with arms outstretched, as if in dua, a prayer, and says he took it to the mata, and now likes to keep it with him.

There is no explanation for mostly being seen in the tracksuit, but that is how he has been since the season has begun. He has often been the last person leaving the Saurashtra nets. Even when the nets were called off for a day after they beat Jharkhand in two days. This is a season full of back-to-back matches, but it has been difficult to drag Jadeja off the cricket field in the searing heat of Rajkot. He has taken 24 wickets in the four innings he has bowled in, in 97 overs. Lest it be said he has done so on tailor-made turners, Jadeja has himself scored 91 and 58 in the only two chances he has had to bat.

It has been near impossible to take the ball out of his hand. He has bowled unbroken spells of 27.1, 25, 19.5 and 25 overs. Jaydev Shah, his captain, tells his coach Shitanshu Kotak, "I ask him if he wants rest, and he responds, "No, I will get them out and then we can rest for longer." At the end of each of his four spells, he has taken the balls with him, written his figures on them, the date and the opposition, and kept them for posterity. "When I build my new house, I will showcase them there," he says.

There has been, in his demeanour, in the way he talks, a sort of assuredness that his comeback into the Indian team is around the corner, and that he wants to record this process for a future telling. He doesn't want that telling done now, though. "I don't want to say 'I am ready' or 'Look I am doing well'," he says. "Let the 24 wickets in two matches do that." This is two days after the end of the match against Jharkhand, a time when international players rush out of the small-town Ranji venues. Jadeja, though, has been camping in Rajkot with his Ranji team-mates.

The one reason why Jadeja possibly feels certain of making a comeback is because he feels he is regaining the control that was his hallmark. That control, the ability to bowl on the same spot with slight pace variation every now and then, was why Jadeja became so valued as a Test player, especially on Indian pitches, which have of late begun to assist spinners a lot more than they in the 2000s. In the only full Test series Jadeja played in India, he picked up 24 wickets at 17.45.

That Jadeja lost that control was down to the shoulder injury he acquired in Australia. He played the World Cup through pain, but it was plain he was not the same bowler. "It's not about just putting it there on the spot," Jadeja says. "I was not being able to do so with action on it." Jadeja's bowling is mostly about the action the shoulder puts on the ball. In bowling long spells he has shown the shoulder looks good now, and the ball is getting there with action on it.

A week before going to Rajkot, Jadeja was in Bangalore, bowling against a Bangladesh A side that lost to both India A and a second-choice Karnataka side. He wasn't putting as much shoulder into the ball as he did in Rajkot. Was it the turning pitch that seduced him into doing so? Was it the Group C batsmen who let him bowl with the control that is his prized possession? Was it just the shoulder injury that limited him as a bowler or was it that international batsmen had wizened to his ways and were not letting him bowl the way he wants to?

Some of these answers will be found in November, when there is every chance he will play as the third spinner, and perform the allrounder role Stuart Binny played in Colombo, where the ball seamed a little. At his best, Jadeja has shown he can be as good as R Ashwin on turning tracks. They formed a deadly team against Australia at home. Add the old-fashioned legspin of Amit Mishra to the mix, and India have a potentially delightful spin combination to combat some of the best travellers and players of spin in the world. Now it is up to Jadeja to be at his best and fittest.