Jadeja - caught by BCCI bowled by Luck. Review on Ajay Jadeja

Going through the reviews written by my MS friends, I decided to clear some misconception and some facts given by my friends. So please bear with me.

He is a match fixer. He paid the price for his crime. These are the statement people make without thinking. First of all he was not charged for match fixing, he was charged for having ?dubious? relationships with the fixers. Just give attention to some points.

Ajay Jadeja used to bat at number 5 or 6, after Sachin, Sidhu Sourav, Dravid, Azhar etc. He got the chance to bat only when, these greats were declared out. Now think, if you were a bookie whom you would approach for match fixing, Ajay Jadeja right! If this is your response, you are a very bad businessman.

Normally, failure of all these batsman, was very rare. So, hoping that Jadeja will come and he will throw his wicket and you will win the match, is ridiculous. If any two of the above batsmen clicked, probably Jadeja will not get chance to bat more than a few overs. Considering the fact that , he was not a regular bowler for the team, his role was limited with the bat only.

No player in Indian team told anything about the match fixing, when asked whether they had been approached by any bookie the answer was emphatic no. I wonder, if match fixing really exists or existed, why no one offered them anything, they were the person who could more easily changed the fate of a match than Jadeja. You might argue that these people were very serious compared to Jadeja, who was happy go lucky and always smiling and sharing jokes with players, so they targeted him. What about Azhar, I have never seen a more reticent Indian cricket than him, but they approached him.

All the matches, in which Jadeja was accused of getting money, he was the highest scorer or one of the top scorers. We have seen numerous occasions, where Indian team was struggling at 4/50 or 5 /70 and Ajay Jadeja along with tailenders was batting to turn the table and even turned many times. I still remember the match in world cup 99, against Australia, wickets were falling like ninepins. We had lost our 4 wickets for less than 30 runs, and score over 100 seemed impossible. But then, jadeja came and score a century, though India lost the match but we were able to salvage some pride.

First time, India score more than 300 hundreds run batting second, when Ajay Jadeja and Azhar both cracked centuries against Sri Lanka in a match which seemed onesided. But they both put the highest partnership of more than 200(at that time) for that wicket (I think for 4 or 5 wicket) to make that match a cliffhanger.

Now consider the logic of BCCI behind the sentence given to Jadeja. He was suspended for five years for having relationship with bookies, effectively it was a life ban. All the other boards Australian Cricket Board, SA Cricket Board, WI Cricket Board, PCB, whose players were involved in match fixing, protected their players, even when some of the stars players confessed taking money from the bookies, while our BCCI slapped ban without any consideration.

The day BCCI was supposed to give verdict on the match fixing issue, Ajay Jadeja was present on one of the national news channel along with reporter waiting for the verdict and one of the reporter asked Jadeja that ?there are rumors that we are trying to political pressure on the board and due to your name the board is having problems?. A few seconds later came the verdict, which effectively ruined a career graph which was heading north. Even that moment he was smiling, he cannot sulk, simply he cannot sulk. What do you say, he was not serious that time. Its his character man, which has often been wrongly interpreted.

But, he never accepted defeat, he was known for waging lone battles on the field and off the field he did the same thing. He got in the Ranji Team, and this year he has proved that he is still the same Ajay Jadeja. He deserves a chance certainly.