'I have a lot of admiration for Ravindra Jadeja'- Rangana Herath

Former Sri Lankan left-arm off-spinner Rangana Herath may have retired from active cricket, but the champion spinner is already in demand as far as sharing his insights in the coaching role is concerned. The most-successful left-arm spinner in the history of Test cricket with 433 wickets in 93 Test matches, Herath has already been racked up the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to coach the young English Lions.

Herath is currently in Mumbai for a short coaching stint, organized by Global Cricket Academy. During the lunch break of the practice session, Herath talked about a plethora of things including his views on wrist spinners and his admiration for Ravindra Jadeja. When asked about the left-arm spinners that excite the legendary bowler, Herath mentioned the names of South Africa’s Keshav Maharaj and India’s Ravindra Jadeja.

Rangana Herath highlighted the importance of Ravindra Jadeja to the Indian set-up

Herath went on to admit how he has a lot of admiration for Jadeja in the context of his all-round play and supreme fitness.

“Keshav Maharaj [of South Africa] and Ravindra Jadeja are doing well as left-arm spinners at the moment. They are important for their teams. It depends on the combination. When you are playing in the sub-continent, he might get a chance. But when you are playing outside India, it is not easy to bring that combination of two spinners.”

At some stage, maybe [Ravichandran] Ashwin is playing or Kuldeep Yadav is bowling. It depends on the situation and conditions. If you consider his batting and fielding, he is one of the fittest guys in the team. I have a lot of admiration for Jadeja,” Herath said as quoted by Mid-day.

When asked about what Jadeja can do to be an automatic selection in the playing XI, Herath said, “It is important to have the [right] combination. Wrist spinners are more in demand because a lot of coaches and team managements think they are wicket-taking options. Most of the wrist spinners are around in the shorter format game. They might bowl a few bad balls, but they still threaten to take wickets. At the same time, if you have finger spinners with good accuracy, you can have a good combination.”

Recently, Jadeja leapfrogged Rangana Herath to become the fastest left-arm bowler to claim 200 Test wickets.