There are cricket-crazy nations and there's India.
Crowned as the world champions, country has seen the most ardent cricket
followers in recent times. Wherever the team went to play the Gentleman's game,
fans turned up in huge numbers bringing lots of cheers, excitement, roars, exuberance
and hope.
Hope is a dangerous thing. To perform when everybody is
hoping you to do well can sometimes leads to your downfall. It delayed a legend
reach his 100th International century mark for a year. It delayed
arguably the best player of tennis 6 times from winning a French open.
Indian team has always played under the burden of
expectations of their passionate supporters. One such day was 14th
June 2009. India was up against host nation England in ICC World T-20 2009 Super-8
clash. England batted first and set up total of 153 for the Indian team to
chase. Tagged as defending champions, Indians were under huge pressure to win
this game and stay alive in the tournament. India was 62-3 when Ravindra Jadeja
walked in to bat ahead of Yuvraj Singh. He scored 25 runs in 35 balls which
eventually proved costly. India lost that game and crashed out of the world
cup.
Since his performance in that match Jadeja has been a
consistent target of sarcasm and mockery by numerous cricket portals and Indian
cricket fans. On Twitter and Facebook, he is jokingly referred as ‘Sir’
Ravindra Jadeja since an online joke calling him the same went viral. Not a lot
has been known about his past by the people who mock him.
Ravindra Jadeja came from a lower middle class family.
His mother worked in a hospital and his dad worked as a watchman, who saved
money from their little income to buy cricket kits for Ravindra. He was devastated
when he lost his mother at the age of 17. After death of his mother, Jadeja
became a completely different person to keep alive his mother’s dream of his
son play for India.
Since then he played quite brilliantly. Jadeja scored three
triple century in domestic cricket. He played vital role in India U19 team’s
victorious campaign in 2008 and rightfully earned his place in the Indian team.
Agreed, he didn’t play well in early part of his cricketing career but
everybody deserves a second chance.
Jadeja is currently the backbone of Indian spin bowling
in all forms of the game. He recently made his test debut and played a very
handy role in India’s 4-0 whitewash victory against Australia. He is become a
go-to man for India and captain Dhoni.
In recently concluded Champion’s Trophy, Jadeja bagged 12
wickets including a 5-for, scored useful 47 from 29 balls against SA and a brilliant
cameo in the finals to lift India to a respectable score and fielded
stupendously. He was the man of the match in the finals. Well, Jadeja has come
a long way and is making every moment count. Truly, he performed like a champion.
He will earn lot of name, fame and legend if he continues to play in this
manner but as of now we can proudly say that he has certainly lived up to his ‘Sir’
tag.
nice .........
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