He has jumped four places to now become the joint top ODI bowler in the latest ICC ODI rankings announced on Sunday. Jadeja's career-best rating of 733 has him tied for the pinnacle spot with West Indies spinner Sunil Narine.
Jadeja is the fourth Indian bowler after Kapil Dev, Maninder Singh and Anil Kumble, to claim the top spot, he has now become the first since Kumble achieved the feat in December 1996.
NO 1 ODI bowler.. But does he deserve it??
Meanwhile, Mishra, with his amazing bowling performance against Zimbabwe, is now 32nd on the list of ODI bowlers, which incidentally is highest ranking ever. He has jumped a whopping 47 places after his stupendous performance.
Now, the question arises does Jadeja really deserve to be the Top ODI bowler in the world or is he good enough to be the second best ODI allrounder in the world..
There is no doubt that he has been a revelation in last six months or so.. He has performed incredibly well, esp with the ball... But he is doing it for only since January last year... He was not even a part of team before that...When he was selected, we all were feeling that he has been selected because he plays for CSK in IPL...But he has proved his doubters wrong with incredible performance... He has scalped 38 wickets in 22 matches this year at an incredible average of 18.87 and economy rate of 3.78.
But, is good performance in 22 matches enough to justify his place as No. 1 ODI bowler.. He is ahead of the likes of James Anderson and Saeed Ajmal, who both are better bowlers than Jadeja in every single way and both of them are performing well for a long time now...esp Ajmal who according to me is the best ODI bowler in the world... Discussing of this, How Sunil Narine is still no. 1 ODI bowler is still a mystery to me just like his bowling.. He was successful till his mystery lasted.. Now he has been found out and have done nothing of note for a long time and he is still NO. 1 ODI bowler..
For me, only Jadeja's performance that was special and mattered something was his incredible Champions League performance, though helped by unusual help from England wickets, that helped spinners a lot... Apart from that, his successes has came against a very weak Pakistan batting line up at home.. against an England team that is weak against left arm spinners that too at home.. He had one good match in West Indian series while against Zimbabwe, he was pretty average.. Now, one good ICC tournament can't justify his ranking....
He is a good bowler... He is not a big turner of the ball but he is very accurate... He never gives anything away and that is his strength... His arm ball adds variety to his bowling but the most dangerous part of his bowling is the odd ball that turns and bounces leaving batsmen all over the world bamboozled... But he needs to keep working on his bowling and make himself even better, so that he can trouble good batsmen at good pitches too...
He has done nothing with his bat to justify his second position in the all rounder's ranking... He may prove to be a good batsman in future but right now, he has many problems with his batting and most of us dont trust his batting yet... His only good performances with bat were those two knocks of 47* against RSF and 33* against England in the final and that says a lot... If these two knocks are enough to propel him to second place in ODI'S all rounders' ranking, over the likes of Watson, then at least for me, ICC rankings are not easy to trust...
Performed well but that performance should not be considered in very high regard.
Mishra has also jumped 47 places to 32 on the basis of his performance against Zimbabwe.. His performance was special because he made mighty Zimbabwe line-up look clueless.. (Okay Guyz, i am kidding).... He did took wickets but he was expensive and does this performance matter anything?? Those batsmen were not able to pick a single googly from him... He was still expensive against such batsmen because he is very inconsistent with his line and length and has a tendency to bowl short and wide at times.. He also has big 'NO ball' problem and that is very unforgettable for a spinner.. He was playing against a very mediocre opposition, a team that is very low in rankings and he was expensive. How did he jump to 32nd place after a single ODI series in 2 years is beyond me...
And i didn't understand the Team Management's decision to not play Rasool in any match.. That guy is a very good allrounder.. A good off-break bowler that loves to flight the ball... And he is a good bat too.. He alsotook 7 wickets against Aussies in a practice match..
Jadeja is a very good player and may very well become the best ODI bowler and all rounder some day, but right now he simply is not.. and ICC rankings must follow a performance analysis system that analyses player's performance over a longer duration of time... Consistency must be taken into account while deciding these rankings and they should look for more than just statistics... Player's ability to turn matches single handely and match winning performances must be taken into account too...Player's performance should be taken into account too... and they should understand that good performance and good statistics are not always the same things...
because as someone Great once said, "Statistics may be deceptive".
Also read : Chronicles of Indian Cricket : A Series about the history of Cricket in India...
Over to you friends... Do you think that Jadeja deserves to be No. 1 ODI bowler??
