Ravindra Jadeja, out since August of last year, made a dream comeback to the Indian team. Playing his first international match after 162 days, Jadeja couldn’t have asked for a better return as he ran through the Australian batting line-up en route to picking the 11th five-wicket-haul of his Test career. Jadeja finished with 5/47 off 22 overs, including the wickets of a well-set Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. After the due had put on a solid 82 run partnership for the fourth wicket, Jadeja struck thrice after lunch to derail Australia’s recovery. Australia were eventually bowled out for 177 with R Ashwin also chipping in with three wickets, after which India reduced the deficit to 100 runs, reaching 77/1 at stumps on Day 1.
However, after the match, Jadeja and his actions came under a bit of scanner after a video of Mohammed Siraj passing an unknown substance to him went viral. A video footage shared by a user on Twitter captured the moment between Siraj and Jadeja, which created an uproar on the internet. The incident took place when Australia were five wickets down and Peter Handscomb along with Alex Carey had the responsibility to put a partnership. In between overs. Siraj slipped something to Jadeja, which the Indian allrounder applied on his fingers and resumed bowling.
After the user pointed out the video to former Tim Paine on Twitter, the former Australia captain replied: Interesting. However, Paine wasn’t the only one who reacted to the matter. Former England captain Michael Vaughan took to social media and wrote: “What is it he is putting on his spinning finger? Never ever seen this”.
Besides Paine and Vaughan, leading Australian media outlet FOX Cricket reported the incident too, calling it ‘questionable’ in their tweet. “A debate has erupted after vision of a questionable moment was spotted during the first innings of the first Test between Australia and India,” they tweeted. This isn’t the first time they have landed in hot waters as last month they had reported controversially on Pakistan captain Babar Azam’s sexting episode after which the PCB hit out at them with ‘unsubstantiated personal allegations’.
As per the Jadeja-Siraj incident, certain reporters present at the venue offered more clarity. A couple of journalists claimed that the BCCI informed that that the substance was nothing more than a pain-relieving ointment which Jadeja was using. For a finger spinner, experiencing soreness in his or her fingers is very common given the constant rotation that is applied on the ball while releasing it. But where this episode goes from here and what twists and turns it takes from here on remains to be seen.
