Former player Ravi Shastri didn’t hold back while talking about the performance of Ravindra Jadeja in the third Test against England at Lord’s. The all-rounder was in the middle for a long time and even scored an unbeaten 50-plus score, but the Indian National Cricket Team lost the match by 22 runs. He was reluctant to go for shots as his concentration was on saving Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj from the English pacers. He added important runs with the pacers, but his effort was not enough in the end.

Shastri felt Jadeja should have tried big shots against Shoaib Bashir and Joe Root.

“The time was there before lunch when Nitish Kumar Reddy and Ravindra Jadeja were batting. One of the two should have gone for it because the field was up and the ball was harder. Once the red-cherry becomes soft, you know that one delivery would have your name written on it. They should have taken more chances and brought the target down to about 40,” Shastri said on The Overlap Podcast.

Jadeja’s innings was compared to Ben Stokes’ effort against Australia in Headingley during the 2019 Ashes. He took England to a win, adding 101 runs with the last three batters. He accumulated an unbeaten 135 runs. Shastri pointed out that if Jadeja had more belief in his batting, he would have played more match-winning innings with the bat for India.

“Jadeja would have won more matches for India If he has even 40 percent of the belief of Stokes. You can’t doubt his talent but he has to take charge. He has hit three triple-hundreds in First-Class cricket. He took ages to realise about his batting potential,” he added.