Wisden name Ravindra Jadeja Indiaâs âMost Valuable Test Playerâ of 21st century
Jadeja has been named India's MVP
|Through a CricViz statistical model that measures âmatch impactâ, Ravindra Jadeja has been named the Indian Cricket Teamâs Most Valuable Test Player (MVP) of the 21st century. Jadeja, who has a MVP rating of 97.3, was rated the second most valuable player of 21st century behind Muralitharan.
Even since making his Test debut in 2012, Ravindra Jadeja has grown by leaps and bounds as a cricketer and the southpaw peaked in 2019 as an all-rounder, as picking 21 wickets with the ball aside, the Saurashtra-born cricketer also averaged a remarkable 62.50 with the bat. Such has been Jadejaâs proficiency on both fronts that after 49 Tests, the all-rounder has picked 213 wickets at an average of 24.62, and has scored 1869 runs at an average of 35.26 and now, firmly sits comfortable as one of the first picks in the Indian Test side.
And the 31-year-oldâs astounding consistency has now seen him be named âThe Most Valuable Test Player of the 21st Centuryâ by Wisden. CricViz, the most prominent and detailed analysis tool in cricket, devised an âMVP ratingâ using a statistical model to rank playerâs âmatch impactâ and the analysis found Jadeja to be the most valuable Indian player of the 21st century. In fact, with an MVP rating of 97.3, Jadeja is the second most valuable Test player of the 21st century, in the whole world, behind Sri Lankaâs Muttiah Muralitharan.
âIt might come as a surprise to see Ravindra Jadeja, Indiaâs spin-bowling all-rounder, feature as Indiaâs number one. After all, heâs 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 â contributing to a very high match involvement,â Cricvizâs Freddie Wilde told Wisden.
âBut Jadejaâs position is based on more than simply volume: itâs what he does when heâs involved that really counts. The 31-year-oldâs bowling average of 24.62 is better than Shane Warneâs and his batting average of 35.26 is better than Shane Watsonâs. 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.
âThe dominance of home performances which debits Anderson and Broad in our model also applies to Jadeja. However, the difference is that while Anderson, and to a lesser extent Broad, are excellent at home, Jadeja is exceptional, and in conditions that are less dominated by spin than they are by pace in England. In addition to his sensational bowling numbers, he also contributes considerably with the bat.â
Wilde revealed that the match impact model focuses on the âplayerâs actual performance versus expected performance of an average player in a similar situationâ metric and added that the model rewards the players who have influenced matches the most.Â
âOur match impact model is a measure of how much better or worse a player has performed compared to the expected performance of an average player appearing in the same position in the same match.
âIt is important to stress that the findings of this model are not illustrative of who the âbestâ player is; rather, they are a measure of which players have influenced the matches they have played in most significantly.â
