In aftermath of losses, it can often fall on the best performer to explain why he didn’t do even more and take the team the distance, even as others folded up.
So Sanjay Manjrekar reserved his very nuanced criticism for Ravindra Jadeja – his usual ‘bits and pieces’ punching bag – while offering equal grudging praise to the heroic all-rounder who was left stranded as India fell 22 short at Lord’s.
India’s top order flopped. But Manjrekar said that despite batting well, Jadeja didn’t do enough. Speaking to JioHotstar, expert Manjrekar mulled on what could have been as far as the ninth-wicket partnership between Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah, went.
“Ravindra Jadeja was batting well and defending resolutely, but it never looked like he was taking the kind of risks needed to help India win. He was playing a waiting game and hoping against hope,” he bemoaned. “The real star in that partnership, though, was Jasprit Bumrah. He stayed out there for one hour and 40 minutes against high-quality fast bowling, facing bouncers, and it was remarkable to see how his net sessions with the bat finally paid off. The mental toughness we see in his bowling came through in his batting too, and that was truly special,” Manjrekar gushed.
His bits&pieces bunny has impressed Manjrekar with his long stays, though the man literally had two triples in first class. “It’s heartening to see how much Jadeja trusts his defence these days. He plays long innings now, patient and with time on his side. The 70 runs he scored in the first innings were not a quick-fire 70 — he batted for four hours. And on this pitch, scoring 50 felt like batting for 50 hours,” Manjrekar said not holding back on the good words here.
What seemed to deflate him was the general defeatist vibe he sensed from the team, not necessarily Jadeja. “But if you look at that moment when Jadeja brought up his half-century, the visuals from the Lord’s balcony did not look too positive. The energy from the dressing room said it all, it felt like the team knew that winning would be very difficult. Jadeja was trying, no doubt, but given the pitch, the conditions, and India’s scoring rate, the chase looked beyond reach,” he said.
Talking on Bumrah who got onto the honour board, Manjrekar was happy. “In the first innings, Bumrah showed just how great a bowler he is. This was the kind of pitch where he could not really display his full range, so he bowled patiently and waited for opportunities. And when the moment came — in the latter half of the innings — he was ready. He picked up five wickets in the first innings on a surface that did not offer much assistance. Then, when Washington Sundar took four key wickets and India needed to wrap up England quickly, Bumrah stepped in again and delivered. That yorker to dismiss Brydon Carse is still fresh in the mind. Showing his greatness in different ways — that has become Bumrah’s legacy,” he told JioHotstar.
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What warmed Manjrekar’s heart was performance of KL Rahul, who he says has earned the tag of Mr Consistent.
“The biggest satisfaction I’ve had — as an analyst and a former cricketer — has come from watching KL Rahul. He has always had the game. Yes, there were grey areas in his technique, but he worked on those and resolved them. What was missing was consistency. On one of our shows, we even jokingly gave him the title of ‘Mr. Consistent KL Rahul’ — but it’s taken him a long time to truly earn that tag. He has now played over 50 Test matches for India, and what I’m seeing now is close to perfection — there are no visible weaknesses. For the first time in an overseas series, he has scored more than 200 runs. That, for me, is a massive takeaway for India,” he said.
On the whole Manjrekar concluded there were no major blunders from India, just accumulation of small errors precipitating into a loss.
“When I look at the turning points and the small mistakes made, I feel India lost this Test match because of those little errors. There were no major blunders — even Rishabh Pant’s run-out was just one of those minor mistakes. But this is where the brilliance of Ben Stokes comes in. He mentioned in his interview that Pant stuttered slightly, and he sensed an opportunity for a run-out. And Stokes, right in the middle of a bowling spell, pulled off a fielding masterclass. That’s the mark of a champion cricketer. Pant, perhaps, was trying to give KL Rahul a chance to get back on strike and complete his century. But like I’ve said, the team didn’t make any massive errors — it was the accumulation of small ones that made the difference in the end,” he said.
