Time running out for Jadeja

March 8, 2015,Perth, DHNS

 That MS Dhoni has an unflinching belief in Ravindra Jadeja’s batting abilities is no secret but the Indian skipper may be running out of patience following a series of low scores from the left-handed all-rounder.

“I think he needs to improve,” said Dhoni when asked about Jadeja’s performances in the recent past, and especially in the World Cup. “He needs to step up really because we have a lot of faith in him, but at the end of the day you can't really play with hope. What you want is performance on the field. He has that capability. You don't get three triple hundreds in India just because you know how to bat. He's definitely talented, but he needs to keep believing in himself,” noted Dhoni after the West Indies’ match on Friday.

Jadeja has gone without a fifty in the last eight ODI innings while his bowling has been tolerable. The Saurashtra player missed all the four Test matches against Australia due to a left-shoulder impingement and could start bowling only from the third match of the tri-series. His last significant score after the England tour was an unbeaten 33 against the West Indies in Kochi and that came five months ago.     

“Every batsman is tested in a few areas,” Dhoni noted while asking Jadeja to find a way out. “They will bowl short-pitched deliveries to him. He will have to find a way in which he can tackle it because every batsman tackles it in a different way, so he'll have to find a way, what he can really do,” stressed Dhoni as he watched in frustration Jadeja falling to miscued pull from the non-strikers’ end. 

Dhoni, however, was willing to give some more rope to the struggling all-rounder. “The other option will be that we try and give him a platform where he doesn't have to worry about his approach to the game.

He goes and freely plays his big shots because where he'll find it difficult is if he goes in slightly early, if he goes in close to the 30th over, then that's the time when he has to think as to whether he has to play his big shots or he has to rotate. We'll have to assess all of that and we'll have to give him a bit more liberty to play his big shots, but he will need a platform from the top order,” he offered.