Kedar Jadhav: The man with the golden arm

Often regarded as the man with a golden arm, Kedar Jadhav took 3-23 against the arch-rivals Pakistan at the Dubai Internation stadium, Dubai. The performance helped India beat Pakistan by 8 wickets and helped Jadhav earn the Man of the Match award.

He kept on bowling in the right areas and kept the pressure on Pakistani batsmen, who were finding it difficult to cope with and hence surrendered to the pressure. The Men in Green got bowled out for 162 and India chased the target quite comprehensively with 21 overs to spare.

Jadhav, who came to bowl to fill in the overs of Hardik Pandya who got injured on-field, ended up with impressive figures of 9-1-23-3. He kept on bowling stump-to-stump and kept it simple with an old-fashioned approach to build the pressure on batsmen by not conceding too many runs.

Pune-born Jadhav now has 19 wickets in 44 ODIs with an average of 30.68. Interesting to note here, with an average of 30.68 in ODIs, he now has a better bowling average than Ishant Sharma who has an average of 30.97 with 115 wickets in 80 ODIs. Considering the fact that Ishant always played as a full-time seam bowler, it's quite an achievement for Kedar, who is a part-time bowler.

In yet another India-Pakistan match on Sunday, India beat Pakistan by nine wickets with an impressive performance by both the Indian openers who made centuries and gave India a comprehensive win. With this win, India booked a place in Asia Cup final.

Although Kedar Jadhav did not get to bowl much in this game, but still he was able to achieve a milestone. Mohammed Amir, Pakistan speedster who had yet another disappointing game, ended up with the figures of 5-0-41-0. With this, his bowling average dipped to 31.21 with 58 wickets in 46 matches.

Now, Jadhav with 19 wickets in 44 matches with an average of 30.68 has a better bowling average than Pakistan's frontline pace bowler which is very encouraging.

This rare statistic might boost Kedar's confidence as a bowler and he might perform even better. The 33-year-old with his round-arm off spinners has been doing really well with the ball in limited overs cricket and gives skipper a confident sixth bowling option.