Ravindra Jadeja starred with the ball in India’s comprehensive six-wicket victory over Australia during their opening World Cup match at Chepauk on Sunday (October 8).
On a tricky pitch, the Aussies lost opener Mitchell Marsh for a duck in the third over but the duo of David Warner and Steve Smith added 69 runs for the second wicket to bail the team out of trouble.
After Kuldeep Yadav broke the stand by removing Warner (41), Smith was trying to build a partnership with Marnus Labuschange.
The pair had already added 36 runs before Jadeja dented Australia with three wickets in quick succession. He dismissed Smith (46), Labuschange (27) and Alex Carey (0) in the span of 15 deliveries to leave the opposition reeling at 119/5.
Australia couldn’t recover from Jadeja’s triple strike as India bundled them out for a below-par 199 in 49.3 overs.
Speaking after the game, Ravindra Jadeja refrained from revealing the secret of his success against Steve Smith.
The left-arm spinner produced a beauty to get rid of Smith in Chennai. It was a good-length ball that pitched right on the middle stump, before taking a sharp turn to disturb the off-stump.
"No, no, I will not tell you. You will print it in English and they will understand. No, I won't tell you this," Jadeja smiled and said in the post-match presser.
Smith, who has now been dismissed by Jadeja on 10 occasions across formats, was left perplexed by the Indian tweaker’s magic ball.
"When I started the first over, the ball was stopping after falling a little slow. I thought it was the afternoon, it was hot and the wicket was dry. I thought a stump-line would be better. From here some balls would turn, some would go straight so it won't be easy for the batsman to line up," Jadeja replied when he was asked about Smith's dismissal.
"This was my plan that I should bowl at the stumps and luckily the ball to Smith turned a little more. So, my plan was simple I was thinking that this is a Test match bowling wicket. I shouldn't experiment too much because everything was happening in the wicket. So, I was trying to bowl it stump to stump,” he explained.
Coming to the match, the Men in Blue found themselves in deep trouble at 2/3 while chasing down the paltry target. It could have been 20/4 but Mitchell Marsh dropped an easy catch to give Virat Kohli a reprieve on 12.
As it turned out, Australia paid the price for this missed opportunity, with Kohli sharing a 165-run partnership with KL Rahul to put India in driver’s seat.
While Virat fell after scoring 85 off 116 balls, Rahul held the one end firmly and stayed unbeaten on 97 off 115 balls alongside Hardik Pandya (11*) to take India over the line with 8.4 overs to spare.
