As Afghanistan rode on lion-hearted performances and rose to the fifth spot on the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 league table with a victory over the Netherlands in Lucknow on Friday, with two points more than Pakistan, former Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja has justified his presence as the most high-profile Indian in another team’s dugout.
Spoken of as a shrewd thinker of the game, Ajay Jadeja himself may try to downplay his role in Afghanistan’s journey in the ongoing World Cup as a mere ‘tourist guide’, but the team members, including coach Jonathan Trott and skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi, have acknowledged his contribution in no uncertain terms.
Trott, a former England batsman, has spoken of Ajay Jadeja bringing his experience of having played a lot of cricket in India. “He’s always a good sounding board with regards to conditions, venues and also the other subcontinent teams that we’ve played against,” he said, admitting that having Jadeja on board during a high-pressure event made his own job easier.
“As for myself as a coach… as a good sounding board with decision making and sort of planning going forward for each game. It (Jadeja’s presence) is also another good set of eyes on the players to see how they’re preparing for the matches and how their careers and talent is being utilised,” Trott told the media in Lucknow after Afghanistan scalped England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka earlier.
Skipper Rahmanullah Gurbaz was quoted as saying by Republic that Ajay Jadeja is a man who always gives happiness to the team. “He’s made cricket easy for us. He always tells us to just go and enjoy. We love him, and he is someone special for us. He tells us to keep things simple and to enjoy our cricket. That’s the most important tip for us,” he said.
Sachin Tendulkar also indicated that Ajay Jadeja’s inputs may have helped Afghanistan. “Their performance has been nothing short of outstanding. Their discipline with the bat, the temperament they’ve shown, and aggressive running between the wickets reflects their hard work. It could possibly be due to a certain Mr. Ajay Jadeja’s influence,” he wrote on X (earlier called Twitter).
Cricketers who played with Ajay Jadeja have always said he was always cerebral. The late Yashpal Sharma, part of the 1983 World Cup winning side, former left-arm spinner Maninder Singh and other former India players have spoken highly of Ajay Jadeja to this writer. “He was always a thinking guy,” said Maninder, who trained alongside him at the National Stadium nets in Delhi.
Anyone who has followed his career will agree that he is a wonderful student of the game. In the past few years, he has made a name for himself as a shred analyst, sharing his sharp and concise opinion as a broadcaster. From his perspective, he has now done well to make himself valuable to the coach and, more importantly, not crave for publicity.
Ajay Jadeja featured in Indian teams in three World Cup competitions in the 90s and is most remembered for a spectacular running catch from long-off to dismiss Allan Border off Kapil Dev in Brisbane in 1992 as well as his late assault on Pakistan paceman Waqar Younis in the 1996 quarterfinals in Bengaluru.
His critics point out that his name surfaced during the match-fixing scandal in 2000. The Board of Control for Cricket in India imposed a five-year ban on him, but in January 2003, the Delhi High Court ruled that the BCCI decision was illegal and set aside the ban. BCCI challenged that order but on May 28, 2003, a Division Bench ordered that he be allowed to play domestic cricket.
For a cricketer who had won 15 Test caps and played 196 matches, scored 5359 runs with six centuries and 30 half-centuries, he never played for India again, though he continued playing domestic cricket till November 2013. But more than 24 years after he last featured in a Cricket World Cup, Ajay Jadeja has returned to contribute to a team’s cause.
Rather like professors who are not loquacious but nudge their scholars with some gentle advice and tips, he has lived up to the mentoring role assigned to him. It is his ability to make the coaching staff comfortable and to get the players thinking with the right inputs that has made the 52-year-old be so celebrated by the Afghan team.