Abhinav Bindra believes ‘a kick on ego’ brought the best out of Ravindra Jadeja

A few days ago, Ravindra Jadeja, the Indian all-rounder, entered into an altercation with commentator Sanjay Manjrekar. The latter called Jadeja a ‘bits and pieces’ cricketer and didn’t mince any words in saying that he didn’t like the 30-year-old. Manjrekar, also a former Indian cricketer, said that Jadeja is a world class bowler in Test cricket but didn’t have the ingredients to play One-Day Internationals.

The left-hander wasn’t going to just sit back and absorb such criticism, he lashed out on social media, terming Manjrekar’s words as ‘verbal diarrhoea’. Jadeja asked Manjrekar to respect people for what they’ve done and reminded him the number of times both have donned the national colours. After playing the warm-up matches against Bangladesh and New Zealand, Jadeja had to wait for a long time before getting a chance in the main round.

Ravindra Jadeja soars above expectations

He eventually played versus Sri Lanka at Headingley in Leeds and churned out the crucial wicket of Kusal Mendis. The southpaw got an opportunity in the semi-final against the Black Caps at the Old Trafford in Manchester. Jadeja returned with impressive figures of 1/34 and scored 77 priceless runs off 59 balls, pulling India out of a precarious position and almost winning the Men in Blue the encounter.

He was involved in a 116-run stand with MS Dhoni and gave India hope of chasing 240 down after being reduced to 92/6 in 30.3 overs. The efforts went in vain as the Men in Blue crashed out of the World Cup, losing the match by 18 runs. Following the wonderful effort, even the 53-year-old Manjrekar admitted that Jadeja had ripped him apart by bits and pieces on all fronts.

In the meantime, Abhinav Bindra, the Gold Medalist of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in 10 metres Air Rifle event, reckoned that Manjrekar’s criticism brought the best out of Jadeja. Bindra, who’s also the winner of the Arjuna Award, Padma Bhushan and many other honours, believes that ‘a kick on the ego’ is needed at times for a positive impact.

He took to Twitter and wrote, “@sanjaymanjrekar got Jadeja’s juices flowing ! I am certain it had a positive effect on his game. Sometimes a kick on ones ego can have a positive impact. #psychology#athletes,”

Here is Bindra’s tweet