Chennai Super Kings have been weirdly trying to force Ravindra Jadeja up the order in IPL 2024, and it’s hard to figure out why, writes Naman Agarwal.
Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.
Lucknow, 2024. CSK have just lost their second wicket for 33 in the fifth over. Shivam Dube, currently in the form of his life, is slated to come in next. He does not. Instead, Chennai send Ravindra Jadeja, who has not batted above Dube thus far in IPL 2024, to No.4 for the first time since 2022 and only the third time since 2014.
Jadeja ends up scoring his third IPL fifty. A masterstroke, then, you’d think? Only that his unbeaten 57 runs come off 40 balls at a strike rate of 143. His last five balls fetch just five runs. Thanks to a late flourish by MS Dhoni, CSK finish at 176-6, but it ends up being too short as LSG chase it down with an over and eight wickets to spare.
It was not the first time that they had promoted Jadeja. Against SRH in Hyderabad, Jadeja came in at No.5, ahead of Daryl Mitchell, Moeen Ali, and Dhoni, and made 31 off 23 at a strike rate of 135 while batting first. Like the Lucknow game, CSK finished with a sub-par total which was easily chased down.
But does it make sense to end up delaying the entry point of your best batter by six overs just to avoid letting him face four balls inside the powerplay? More importantly, does it make sense to not trust your best batter, who has shown consistent and rapid signs of improvement against all types of bowling, to see out four deliveries of the powerplay?
Jadeja has struck at 113 against spin across his T20 career. In the middle overs, that number drops down to 105. Knowing that the fields would open up and spin would be on after the sixth over, CSK could have promoted Moeen if shielding Dube was paramount. Moeen strikes at 149 against spin in the middle overs and also has the experience of batting inside the powerplay for CSK.
The only period where Jadeja the T20 batter had a significant positive in his career was during IPL 2020 and 2021, when he excelled as a pace-hitting finisher. If he makes the T20 World Cup squad for India, it would be as a spin-bowling all-rounder who would most likely bat at No.7, which makes his constant promotion to the middle order all the more baffling.
Instead, both CSK and Jadeja should be looking to get his finishing abilities, which seem to have taken a hit in the last couple of years as his death overs strike rate of 161 since IPL 2022 suggests, back on track. For context, 39 batters who have faced more than 25 balls at the death since IPL 2022 have a strike rate of 180 or more. That would be in the best interest of all parties involved, unlike what they are doing now – which is turning him into something he is very clearly not.
