Between 14 March and 18 March this year, during the third Test between India and Australia at Mohali, the Wikipedia page profiling the India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja was edited 93 times until a flair for mischievous embellishment and persistence were finally conquered by veracity and vigilance. It commenced with an opening summary listing achievements of staggering magnitude before a significantly more mundane truth reasserted itself after an epic game of editorial whack-a-mole played out with the backspace key instead of a mallet.
Sir Ravindra Jadeja or Ravindrasinh Anirudhsinh Jadeja (born 6 December 1988), the spoof introduction began, is a philanthropist, a Nobel Prize winner, a double Laureus Sportsman of the Year and the nearest human to being god. Other than that, he is an Indian cricketer.
It eluded the blue pencil for a while and was revived several times but now survives only on the innumerable web pages that jovially reprinted it. Far more interesting than the reliability or otherwise of Wikipedia is the motive behind the fictional flourish.
Had it appeared over the past four years it would have been obviously facetious and explicitly malicious, designed to puncture the ego of a player whose vanity was thought to make Henry VIII look like George VI. By March, though, after a very promising start to a Test career his critics thought beyond his ability, the gleeful enthusiasm with which the inventions have been received, spun, adorned and disseminated now betray a fondness for the supposed butt of them.
Where once the comic knighthood as well as the other decorations afforded His Lordship Sir Sri Sri Ravindra Jadeja across social media forums stood for derision, the allrounder’s performances and the good-natured resilience he has shown in the face of them have given them a tender bloom. His reception from the predominantly India-supporting crowd at Cardiff during the Champions Trophy victory over South Africa, where he scored 47 off 29 balls, took two for 31, fielded energetically and athletically and broke the dangerous partnership between Robin Peterson and AB de Villiers by keeping his head, transcended mere acceptance and ventured towards adoration.
If a player’s reputation among his team’s fans is so dependent on form rather than character, warmth towards him can be fleeting. But it would be heartless to begrudge him a lengthy respite when the public embraces him as loyally as his team-mates did during the years he was scapegoated.
Jadeja was part of the India team who won the Under-19 World Cup in 2008 in Malaysia. Three years earlier his mother, a nurse, had died after suffering burns in a fire. Jadeja had rushed her to hospital where for five days she fought for her life, a time when, he says, she told him how much she wished she could see him play for India.
He was picked in the defending champions’ squad for the World Twenty20 in England in 2009 and made his tournament debut in the Super Eight round against England. At 24 for two off 3.4 overs and chasing 154 to win, the coach, Gary Kirsten, made the bewildering decision to send Jadeja, who had earlier taken the wickets of the opener Ravi Bopara and Kevin Pietersen, in at No4 ahead of Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan. He took 35 balls to make 25 and the Almanack, among millions of other voices, blamed his inertia for the defeat. Later the same year, he was castigated for India falling three short of Australia’s 350 in the fifth ODI at Hyderabad when the supposed finisher was run out needing 18 off nine balls.
A contract dispute made him ineligible for the Indian Premier League in 2010, a tournament he had won with the Rajasthan Royals in 2008 when his captain, Shane Warne, gave him the nickname Rockstar, but he was still selected for the World T20 in the Caribbean that May despite a distinct lack of practice. He came on to bowl the fourth over of the Super Eight game against Australia and Shane Watson hit each of the last three balls of it for six. He returned for the 10th over and this time David Warner hit his first three balls for six. No need to guess who was held responsible for that defeat.
For a couple of years it seemed as though he would never live it down. He was not selected for the World Cup squad in 2011 and could not share in the absolution India’s victory bestowed on previous collective and individual failures. Even when he scored a triple century in the Ranji Trophy in 2011 and two more in successive matches in 2012 to become the first Indian with three, the debased standards of cricket in that competition were cited to mitigate any praise. Rather than criticise the board for the quality of the domestic first-class game, it was easier to ridicule Jadeja for having the shamelessness to play three such enormous innings.
With India 2-1 down in the series against England last December, Jadeja was called up for his Test debut for the fourth match in Nagpur, clean bowling Jonathan Trott and bagging Pietersen in both innings. He kept his place for the series against Australia and, on helpful pitches, took the wicket of Michael Clarke five times in six knocks, twice bowling and once having the opposition’s best player of spin stumped – a feat not to be scoffed at.
It was during that series that the tone of the jokes at his expense began to change. Perhaps he was an easier target than Dhoni for what some fans perceived as cronyism for the closeness of the captain to Jadeja, Pragyan Ojha and Suresh Raina and the fact that all four are represented by the same management company. Yet Dhoni’s ragging of Jadeja on Twitter throughout this year’s IPL has been an example of one of the age-old arts of captaincy – the playful sending-up of a colleague, only this time it was performed in front of an audience comprising the India captain’s 2.1m followers.
Leaving for practice at 3pm but the stadium is coming so tht sir jadeja can practice, Dhoni tweeted in April followed by: Sir jadeja doesn’t run to take the catch but the ball finds him and lands on his hand. By doing so he has helped to defuse the sneering, emphasising that the team and especially Jadeja are all in on it. I think it is a joke and we are enjoying it, said the man himself. I don’t think I’m a great man or miracle man. I just want to be what I am right now. I don’t take the title ‘Sir’ seriously.
No one takes the title seriously and sometimes those who hustle with the ball and bustle with the bat take time to win over crowds because their skills look so commonplace, so attainable. Grafters are given fewer favours than the innately gifted. Their character, though, commands respect.
Ashley Giles may never escape the wheelie bin and King of Spain and it is likely that Jadeja will never shake Jadejageddon or his knighthood, but both prove that if you earn the respect of your coaches and team-mates, scepticism and sarcasm can be converted into belief and affection.
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