India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja was named as the country’s ‘Most Valuable Player’ (MVP) of the 21st century by Wisden. Jadeja’s contribution to his team has been noteworthy with the ball, bat, and while fielding. Wisden used CricViz, a detailed analysis tool in cricket to analyse his performance.

Jadeja’s MVP rating was an astounding 97.3, second only to Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and thus making him the second most valuable Test player of the 21st century.

“It might come as a surprise to see Ravindra Jadeja, India’s spin-bowling all-rounder, feature as India’s number one. After all, he’s not even always an automatic pick in their Test team. However, when he does play he is picked as a frontline bowler and has batted as high as No.6 – contributing to a very high match involvement,” Cricviz’s Freddie Wilde told Wisden.

“The 31-year-old’s bowling average of 24.62 is better than Shane Warne’s and his batting average of 35.26 is better than Shane Watson’s. His batting and bowling average differential of 10.62 runs is the second-best of any player this century to have scored more than 1,000 runs and taken 150 wickets. He is an all-rounder of the very highest quality,” he added.

Having made his debut in 2009, Jadeja has represented India in 49 Tests, 165 ODIs, 49 T20Is so far.

The 31-year-old’s bowling average of 24.62 is better than Shane Warne’s and his batting average of 35.26 is better than Shane Watson’s.

Earlier on Monday, Jadeja trended on Twitter with fans engaging an online debate over ‘who is better’, Ravindra Jadeja or Krunal Pandya.

However, comparing the two seemed quite unfair considering that Jadeja is a seasoned campaigner and Krunal Pandya made his India debut in 2018 and featured in only 18 T20Is thus far.