His last Ranji Trophy outing was in 2024.
Ravindra Jadeja has been India’s best player in Tests, but was ignored for the ODI series against Australia. Hence, he has the window to prepare for the upcoming Tests by featuring for Saurashtra in the second round of the Ranji Trophy.
It has now been confirmed that Jadeja will play for Saurashtra against Madhya Pradesh in Rajkot tomorrow. His most recent outing in the Ranji Trophy was against Assam in 2024, and he played two games last season while returning from an injury to prove his fitness.
He won the Player of the Match award against Delhi, where he took 12 wickets and scored 38 runs in the match. Overall, Jadeja has scored 3456 runs at an average of 57.60 and snared 208 wickets at 21.25 runs apiece in 47 Ranji matches for Saurashtra.
The pitch in Rajkot will likely be spin-friendly, as was the case against Karnataka last week, where spinners took 88.57% of total wickets in the game. Jadeja might be too good for MP batters, who will face a more arduous challenge than they did against Punjab in the opening fixture.
The biggest reason for Ravindra Jadeja to play in the Ranji Trophy is to prepare himself for the impending Test series against South Africa. Jadeja, currently the No.1 ranked all-rounder in the format, will look to remain in rhythm ahead and keep the momentum going during this national break, which will help him adapt quickly against the current World Test Championship (WTC) champions.
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Moreover, the BCCI has clearly instructed national contracted players to make themselves available for domestic games whenever they are away from India duties. Jadeja currently falls into that category, which might have made it compulsory for him to play the Ranji Trophy.
However, he won’t mind it because match practice is necessary for him at this stage of his career. Jadeja has retired from T20Is and doesn’t seem to be in ODI plans, suggesting he won’t have as many competitive games under his belt moving forward.
Hence, domestic games become all the more important for him if he wishes to remain at the top of his game. For Saurashtra, Jadeja’s availability is a massive boost because he alone acts as two players by contributing heavily with both bat and ball.
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