India captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid have been facing the heat of the fans for their questionable decision to declare India’s first innings against Sri Lanka in Mohali when Ravindra Jadeja was short by 25 runs of what would have been his maiden Test double century.
India declared at the mammoth total of 572/8 on Day 2, however, leaving Jadeja stranded at 175* at the stroke of Tea. With the innings declared, the umpires called for an early Tea.
Jadeja had remained unbeaten on 45 at the end of Day 1, carried on piling more on the Sri Lankan attack depleted by the injury to pacer Kahiru Kumara on Day 1.
He raised his fifty early in the morning off 87 balls and then his hundred – second in Tests – off 160 balls just before lunch. Then after taking India to over 450, Jadeja, conjuring century stands with R Ashwin and Mohammed Shami, played some attacking shots to reach 175 off 228 balls, his innings laced with 17 fours and 3 sixes.
With Jadeja’s attacking prowess, and a lot of time left in the game, India’s strong bowling in home conditions against Sri Lanka’s fragile batting, fans were expecting India to allow the southpaw to reach the 200 mark. However, Rohit Sharma signalled to end the innings, and gave his bowlers full one session to make inroads, which they did, nipping out four Sri Lankan wickets in an extended third session of 43 overs.
This has got the fans furious and questioning why Jadeja wasn’t given a few more overs to reach the 200-run landmark.
Now, Jadeja himself has cleared the air about this. After the day’s play, in the press conference, Jadeja said that he himself had signalled the team for the declaration as the opposition players had got tired and it was the right time to pounce on their batsmen.
He reckoned that the ball had started to turn and the pitch was showing signs of more wear and tear than it had till then. Hence, he, too, was keen to take the field again with the ball in hand.
“Yeah there was message coming from inside and I was also telling them. When I was batting, balls had started taking spin and there was variable bounce. So I told them that the wicket is playing tricks and we can put them [Sri Lanka] into bat. They were on the field for almost two days and were naturally tired. So it wouldn’t have been easy for them to come out and start playing shots and stay further on the field. So our plan was to score quickly and declare as soon as possible,” Jadeja explained.
Jadeja on declaration: Dressing room was sending me mesgs. I was also sending them mesgs that the ball is starting to turn. We can declare soon! #IndvSL
*?
— Chetan Narula (@chetannarula) March 5, 2022
Jadeja was spot-on in his assessment of the surface. An hour into Sri Lanka’s batting, until when the effect of the roller had faded off, the ball was turning big. Jadeja dismissed Sri Lanka’s best batter and skipper, Dimuth Karunaratne, with a sharply turning delivery.
