Sanjay Manjrekar wants Ravindra Jadeja dropped from World Cup semis against New Zealand

A few days ago, Sanjay Manjrekar, the Indian commentator, said that Ravindra Jadeja is a ‘bits and pieces’ player. He said that the all-rounder is a pure bowler for Test cricket, but he doesn’t fit the bill for ODIs. The 53-year-old also didn’t mince any words in saying that he doesn’t like Jadeja. The harsh words didn’t go down well with the cricketer by any stretch of the imagination.

He put up a stern message, calling Manjrekar’s words as ‘verbal diarrhoea’ and asked the veteran to respect someone, who has achieved something in their career. Jadeja also reminded him of the stark difference in the number of times both have donned the national colours. Even as Jadeja got support from all quarters, Manjrekar was greeted with brickbats and criticism from everywhere.

Michael Vaughan, the former England cricketer took a dig at the commentator as well. Siddharth, a popular Indian actor, called Mannjrekar’s commentary as ‘crass’. However, the Mumbaikar, to everyone’s surprise, picked Jadeja in his predicted playing eleven for India’s semi-final match against New Zealand. The crunch game is scheduled to take place at the Old Trafford in Manchester.

Manjrekar targets Ravindra Jadeja yet again

The Men in Blue are being deemed as the favourites to win the encounter as the Virat Kohli-unit finished atop the table with 15 points from nine matches. As far as Jadeja is concerned, he played the last league match against Sri Lanka at the Headingley in Leeds and picked up the important wicket of Kusal Mendis. Meanwhile, Manjrekar has decided to throw up another surprise.

Prior to the crunch match, he put forth the numbers of the Indian spinners- Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja- versus the Kiwis. He asked to consider the numbers before picking the final lineup. In the figures, Jadeja’s average and economy are 73 and 5.61 respectively, much higher to that of Chahal and Kuldeep. It suggests that Manjrekar doesn’t want Jadeja to be picked.

He took to Twitter and wrote, “Ind could pick players specific to the pitch, boundaries & opposition. Get Kedar back in the playing XI & look at numbers of Indian spinners v NZ before picking them. Chahal – Avg 27.15, Eco – 5.11 Kuldeep – Avg – 21.00, Eco – 4.84 RA Jadeja – Avg – 73.00, Eco – 5.61,”

Here is Manjrekar’s tweet: