India can never get enough of its top order batsmen, penning odes to their batsmanship and general greatness. And so it was that Navjot Singh Sidhu, ended up with the Man of the Match in that 1996 50-over World Cup quarterfinal, for his 93 as opener.
Chinnaswamy became the Chinnaswamy that night, and it wasn’t only because arch rivals Pakistan were ultimately humbled. Both Sidhu’s 93 taking on Mushtaq Ahmed, a feared spinner, and Venkatesh Prasad’s dismissal and send-off of Aamer Sohail, were crucial indeed.
But the man who made March 9 unforgettable was Ajay Jadeja. Accelerating in the death overs, pushing the score past 280 which was then a psychological mountain, his calculated, fearless, liberating, gleeful attack on Waqar Younis, gave India the heft, the buzz that a top order batter’s 90 or even century, never could.
It was a T20 mindset a decade before T20s came into vogue. It was that typical middle order extended cameo, a compounding of the total, that shook the opponent to the core, because it ambushed their plans. It’s all very commonplace these days. wakes up, chooses carnage, smacks a few sixes in last two overs, and gives India the winning totals. But back in 1996, it was only the Bevans and Zulus and Neil Johnsons and Hashan Tilekeratnes pulling off these innings, even as the top order batters built their run mountains, and monopolised Fandoms.
An iteration of the OG Jaddu’s inside-out six that really pummeled Waqar existed before Virat Kohli started hitting those at his exalted oprner or No 3 perch. Jadeja and the likes of Robin Singh in 1999 played a bunch of these 45s off 26es, for one right headrush.
It’s not exactly disappeared into the folds of time, most remember Jadeja’s whacking of Waqar quite vividly in fact. But much before Dube got up and chose violence or well before that meme even came into existence, Ajay Jadeja with his floppy hat when fielding, and ill-fitting helmet when batting, and a lopsided grin on his face, did-a-Dube making March 9 unforgettable.
