A Maiden View: In Praise of Ravindra Jadeja

Nadkarni was in his eighth year playing for India, and he had already established his bowling prowess by being unrelenting towards the batsmen while also being a notorious experimenter.

He batted well, too, but what he was about to do on that day in Madras had nothing to do with a bat. In fact, it had everything to do with a bat, but Nadkarni wasn't the one holding it – he was turning the ball this way and that, lofting it low and high, pitching it safe, trying to make the batsman hit and fault.

But the batsmen – Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington – did not budge, flicking the ball to the fielders, playing defensively where a lofted shot would have done wonders.

It was a slow game, and the runs were thin, but the balls went cutting the air thick and fast. By the time any batsman scored off Nadkarni's ball, it had been almost 22 overs with one ball to go. And when Barrington did score a single off Nadkarni, the latter was rested.

The laziness of the entire thing was, in fact, never laziness at all. Of course, the only action that really felt as if it was somebody playing was that of the bowler, who came in from the other end pressured by the whole experience of having to see his masterpiece thump upon the wood of that bat all for nothing – but here he came, the only moving figure in the entire field.

But it wasn't laziness because it was skill, and the skill wasn't limited to just the batsman or the bowler or the fielder. The skill also included the patience of the spectator, who needed to sit through those laboriously constructed innings and patiently and yet passionately bowled balls, all trying to engage the batsmen in a game of abandonment.

Rebirth of Test cricket?

So was the case on the fifth day of the fourth Test between India and South Africa. It was rather different in that this campaign of organised defense engineered by the South Africans came in the year 2015, an age where T20 format thrives if not dominates.

Quick and fast life is never compromised for a game of Test, let alone where hit and stay inside the crease is the order of the day. So when a bowler like Jadeja bowls a spell of 17 consecutive maidens, accompanied by a classic 43 off 297 balls by one of the best batsmen in World cricket today; an hour for one run.

And 143 runs – a labor of love, really – in as many overs, we know that what we had was not a boring match, but a classic encounter set to chart history. What we witnessed, then, was cricketing history, a tale of strategic defense, a tale of some real, spell-binding cricket – and after a long, long time.