5. Ravindra Jadeja
2022 performance: 10 matches, 5 wickets, bowling average touched 50. 116 runs with the bat from 10 matches, at a strike rate of 118.
Ravindra Jadeja brings much excitement and spark to any contest regardless of the stage of competition and the format. And he’s proven himself as an outstanding all round performer in the IPL.
But this time around, as he was offered the captaincy by Dhoni, which is nothing less than a prized responsibility and also a result of one’s trust in another’s capability, there appeared chinks – not chunks of great performances in Jadeja’s armoury.
Insipid with the bat, uninspiring with the ball, Jadeja hardly looked the figure of stoicism he’s so often been for the world famous Chennai Super Kings outfit.
That he could hardly put on a whack with the bat and didn’t even feature among the wickets, Jadeja, quite simply, endured a nightmare season. And one’s rather glad that it’s over for him. For you don’t want to see a towering figure in the game stoop to a state of ordinariness – do you?
What was rather awful and even unprecedented was that this time around, one even saw Ravindra Jadeja, usually an ace on the field, drop catches. How often has that happened in the past?
