Ravindra Jadeja, India vs Australia, second Test, Virat Kohli
Reuters

Slow left-arm Ravindra Jadeja and off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin have been two brilliant bowlers for India this home season. The ongoing second Test match between India and Australia in Bengaluru witnessed Jadeja finishing with six wickets, but people on Twitter were not able to understand why Virat Kohli under-bowled him in the first innings.

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Even on the opening hours of Day 3, it was Ishant Sharma and Ashwin, who opened the bowling for India. It might have been Kohli's ploy to keep a pacer and spin combination. However, it did not prove to be right as it was only after Jadeja was introduced that the Australia batsmen were all out with the slow-left arm taking the last three wickets in a hurry. Had Jadeja been used early on in Day 3, Australia might have been dismissed quickly. 

One look at the scorecard, and Jadeja has bowled the least number of overs (21.4) compared to the rest including seamers, as Ishant Sharma bowled 27 overs and Umesh Yadav with 24.

Though one understands that the seamers were brilliant for India and they posed serious questions, Ishant and Umesh were unlucky and could not bag many wickets. Still, Jadeja was not bowled much by Kohli, who relied on his number one spinner Ashwin as the Chennai man bowled 49 overs for two wickets.

It is not easy to understand Kohli's logic behind this move -- not using Jadeja much. With India in desperate need of wickets, a captain should always look at bowlers, who has been taking most wickets and give him the ball as he, in this case Jadeja, must have been confident of taking more wickets.

Though this might have been a one-off mistake by Kohli to under-bowl Jadeja in Bengaluru, one hopes that captain will not commit the same error again in the second innings.