Is it over for Jadeja in white-ball cricket?

Ahmedabad: On a day when he celebrated his surprise elevation as the vice-captain of the Indian Test team with a 11th Player of the Match award, Ravindra Jadeja was forced to swallow the bitter pill of being dropped from the ODI squad for the Australia series starting October 19 in Perth.

The 36-year-old Jadeja, who was part of the victorious Champions Trophy squad this February-March and has been in exceptional form with both bat in the five-match Test series in England as well as the opening Test here against the West Indies, was ignored for the trip Down Under, keeping in mind the seam-friendly conditions in Australia.

With fellow left-arm spinning all-rounder Axar Patel — five years younger than Jadeja — now being the premier choice in limited overs along with Kuldeep Yadav, it could well be considered the end of the road for India’s Most Valuable Player in recent years. India have picked Washington Sundar both for the ODI and the ensuing T20I series in Australia as they look to rebuild the team for the 2027 World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Although the writing is on the wall, chairman of the selection committee Ajit Agarkar said Jadeja, who has retired from T20Is, is still in the reckoning and his omission was purely because of the conditions. “At the moment, to take two left-arm spinners to Australia is not possible. He is clearly in the scheme of things with how good he is. But there will be some competition for places. Of course, he was there in the Champions Trophy squad because we took those extra spinners with the conditions there.

“At the moment, we could only carry one (to Australia) and get some balance in the team with Washi and Kuldeep there as well. I don’t think we are going to need more than that in Australia. You can’t accommodate everyone. It’s nothing more than that.”

After the series against Australia, India are set to host South Africa and New Zealand in three ODIs each. The squad for those series will give an indication of what the selection committee actually thinks about Jadeja.  

Two T20 stars who didn’t feature in the ODI squad for Australia were Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma. While Abhishek was the Player of the Series in the just-concluded Asia Cup with 314 runs, Tilak was the star of the final against Pakistan, scoring a brilliant 69 not out in a tense final. Agarkar said the duo are close to making the cut for ODIs.

“At the moment, Rohit (Sharma) and (Shubman) Gill are likely to open. There’s Yashasvi Jaiswal. People tend to forget how good he is as well. And Tilak’s very close. Again, we’ve taken a 15-man squad. It’s a 3-match series. It’s not like a Test series where you can carry a few extra which you might need. You may not end up needing more than those. And you’re not going to make too many changes in the 3 games that you play. It’s a short series. We’ve got a few more one-dayers coming after that.”

Ajit Agarkar, Chief of senior selectors: “At the moment we could only carry one (to Australia) and get some balance in the team with Washi and Kuldeep there as well. I don’t think we are going to need more than that in Australia. You can’t accommodate everyone. It’s nothing more than that."