Wisden India Names Ravindra Jadeja The 'Most Valuable' Player Of 21st century

In the highly analytical study carried out by CricVizz to ascertain the overall impact of a cricketer across formats, Jadeja's MVP rating was an astounding 97.3, second only to Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan.

Ravindra Jadeja - Photo/PTI

In what comes a huge honour to India's premier all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, Wisden India has named him the 'most valuable' player of 21st century. Jadeja surprisingly beat some of the modern day greats of the game including his Indian skipper Virat Kohli to bag top honours in Wisden's detailed analytical study carried out by CricViz. Wisden used CricViz, a detailed analysis tool in the gentlemen's game to judge his performance. In this regard, Cricviz’s Freddie Wilde told Wisden, "It might come as a surprise to see Ravindra Jadeja, India’s spin-bowling all-rounder, feature as India’s number one. After all, he’s not even always an automatic pick in their Test team. However, when he does play he is picked as a frontline bowler and has batted as high as No.6 – contributing to a very high match involvement" In the highly analytical study carried out by CricVizz to ascertain the overall impact of a cricketer across formats, Jadeja's MVP rating was an astounding 97.3, second only to Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan. Jadeja, who made his international debut in 2009, has been an integral part of the national team in all three forms of the game. The all-rounder has made notable contribution in helping Virat and Co achieve a winning juggernauts of sorts in both Test and ODI cricket. He further added, “The 31-year-old’s bowling average of 24.62 is better than Shane Warne’s and his batting average of 35.26 is better than Shane Watson’s. His batting and bowling average differential of 10.62 runs is the second-best of any player this century to have scored more than 1,000 runs and taken 150 wickets. He is an all-rounder of the very highest quality." Ever since doning the Indian jersey, Jadeja formed a lethal spin partnership with ace off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to help India pull off a spree of series wins under the captaincy of both MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli and help the team become Number One in Test cricket .He is equally handy with the bat, scoring some useful contributions lower down the order. 'Jaddu' has also been one of India's most dependable all-rounder in white ball cricket and is part of the spin armoury which boasts of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. He is supremely fit and is considered one of the quickest and most agile fielders across the green turf. Jadeja has so far doned the Indian Jersey in 49 Tests, 165 ODIs and 49 T20Is.