With six wickets and 128 runs so far, Rajasthan Royals’ all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has been among the top five all-rounders this IPL season. Jadeja, with his unbeaten 43-run knock and one wicket, was adjudged Man of the Match in Royals’ 40-run win over Lucknow Super Giants in Lucknow on Wednesday night.
The dismissal of power hitter Nicholas Pooran against the left-arm spin of Jadeja was one of those rare instances when a left-handed batsman fell to a left-arm spinner in the IPL. After the match, Jadeja spoke about this matchup, which coaches and teams mostly avoid in the tournament.
“It’s not easy for a left-arm spinner to bowl against a left-handed batsman. So it’s not that easy. But sometimes, conditions help you. You get some spin from the wicket, and the ball stops a bit on the surface. So all these things play a big factor. That’s what is happening on this wicket. If I am a batsman facing such a spinner on a wicket where the ball is spinning and gripping, I will not take chances on every ball. And the same is the other way around. When I am bowling, the batsman also thinks in his mind that the ball is spinning and gripping. So at that time, that situation becomes a win-win situation for the left-arm spinner. But I will say that it will not happen every time. Because this is a T20 format, and sometimes one has to take the best decision. One does not have much time to think. Whatever a spinner has to do, he has to do in a small time frame. So sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it does not go well,” Jadeja said in the post-match press conference.
4 min readApr 23, 2026 01:24 PM IST
Ravindra Jadeja in action during IPL 2026 for Rajasthan Royals. (PHOTO: CREIMAS FOR IPL)
Curated by James Chen
