Kumble and Dhoni’s idea to give me the ball: Kedar Jadhav

While a few ODI series in recent times have been quite ordinary, the ongoing series against New Zealand has produced a frontline spinner for India in the form of Kedar Jadhav. The latter impressed with some impressive bowling when he was able to help the Indians with a number of breakthroughs in almost all ODIs played against the Kiwis thus far.

The 31-year old Kedar Jadhav is someone who has also kept wickets at regular intervals for the Indians as well as the Delhi Daredevils in recent times. However, his ability to bowl off-spin is something that comes as an added bonus for the captain he plays under. Speaking about the same, Kedar said that it was the idea of Anil Kumble and MS Dhoni to give the ball to Jadhav to chance his arm.

“I think its a bit of both. A bit of my action and pace I vary according to every batsman, which makes it difficult. It was Mahi Bhai and coach’s idea to give me the ball. Obviously, he wants any of the top 5 batsmen who can bowl, which helps when any of the other bowlers have a bad day,” Jadhav said the press conference on Friday.

Apart from a score of 41, Kedar Jadhav has been quite unsuccessful with the bat. However, an optimist, Jadhav said that he would like to grab every opportunity possible.

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“Obviously the opportunity has been missed, especially in the last game. But it’s still early stages for Manish (Pandey) and me. We need to grab whatever opportunity is thrown at us. We need to learn quickly from the opportunities we have missed. That’s what international cricket is all about – delivering when it matters most to the team,” he said.

He also added a few words on Virat Kohli. “Virat is a great player and it’s always nice if he scores. It makes life easy for the batsmen coming next to get whatever runs (possible). But it’s not like that (we’re overdependent on him). We have too many quality batsmen in the team and we need to deliver whenever we get the opportunity,” Jadhav said.

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