Definitely one of my best shows: Jadeja

Having brought up his best one-day figure, Ravindra Jadeja termed his Tuesday’s performance against the West Indies as one of his best in his fledgling career.

Jadeja’s maiden five-wicket haul (5/36) fashioned India’s eight-wicket win over West Indies and fetched him a man of the match award here at The Oval.

“I have had a few four-wicket hauls previously but this my first experience of getting five wickets in a match. I am really happy with my show and I would say this is definitely one of best,” he remarked.

Sticking to wicket-to-wicket line, Jadeja said, was the secret of his success.

“The wicket was a bit on the slower side, so I decided to bowl slow and straight. I got a bit of turn and got wickets as well. I wasn’t thinking about the (big-hitting) batsmen (in the opposition). I was just thinking of sticking to my strengths,” he reasoned.

West Indian skipper Dwayne Bravo felt his batsmen needed to take more responsibility. “I would say it’s a bit of both,” he said when asked if West Indian batting struggled because of good bowling or bad approach to batting.

“Even though we lost an early wicket, we got back on track through Johnson (Charles) and Darren (Bravo) but we then played some bad shots in the middle and lost wickets at the wrong time,” he pointed out. Bravo said not getting wickets with the new ball affected their chances.

“Wickets with the new ball would have put pressure on their batsmen. That would have made a big difference. We, as a bowling unit, didn’t do that. It’s going to be difficult bowling to such a batting unit if you don’t get early breakthroughs,” he offered.

The DRS was used four times in this match with great degree of success, but Bravo said he wasn’t a great fan of the system.

“It is something, for me, I'm not really a big fan of it. Obviously, a batsman will know if he has nicked the ball or not. Today we had a decision that could have gone either way with Marlon Samuels which was a turning point for us.

“So, like I said, apart from that, we deserve to be on the losing side because we did not bat properly, and we have to be honest with ourselves. We have a very important next game.”

Fletcher bereaved

India’s coach Duncan Fletcher will be flying home to Cape Town to attend the funeral of his mother who passed away on Sunday.

Fletcher, who stayed back for India’s match against West Indies, will be back in time for team’s match against Pakistan in Birmingham on Saturday.