Hyderabad: Ravindra Jadeja played a key role in the first India vs England Test so far with his all-round skills at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, on Saturday.
The Indian all-rounder played a superb knock of 87 runs in the first innings for India and his knock helped the hosts take a 190-run lead. KS Bharat and Axar Patel also played supporting knocks to help the team India take a commanding position.
During his knock, Jadeja got himself included in the list of cricketers with best bowling and batting average difference, a unique one where all others in the top five are retired. He became the fourth cricketer to have the best average difference in Test cricket among cricketers with at least 2000 runs and 200 wickets to their name, during the first Test against the visiting English team.
The Average difference is the margin of gap between batting and bowling average of a player. The metric holds significance as it is the difference between how many runs a batters scores on average in an innings as compared to how many runs he concedes to take a single wicket. Thus, the higher is the average difference, the more it shows supreme all-round skills of a cricketer.
Jadeja surpassed South African pacer Shaun Pollock whose average difference was 9.19 taking his count to 12.93. Jadeja has batting average of 37.05 in 69 matches and possesses a bowling average of 24.12. West Indian great Gary Sobers tops the list with an average difference of 23.74 from 93 matches. He has a batting average of 57.78 and a bowling average of 34.03.
Former South African star Jacques Kallis is next in the list with an average difference of 22.71 from 166 games. Former World-Cup winning captain of Pakistan, Imran Khan is at the third with 14.88 average difference.
