Jadhav gave us no chance: Morgan

Jadhav played an aggressive innings of 76-ball 120 and, along with his skipper Virat Kohli (122 off 105 balls), helped India chased down a stiff target of 351 for a three-wicket win here last night. “What hurts the most is we had India at 60 for 4. We were right in till the middle order, but went in to bowl at worst. We did not expect Jadhav to come out and play like that, credit to his 76-ball hundred. 

We take our hat off to him. He was striking it from ball one and gave us no chance,” said Morgan about the pint-sized Pune-born batsman Jadhav’s whirlwind knock. Jadhav hit cleanly and notched up his hundred by striking 11 fours and two sixes before finishing with a brilliant 120 after joining forces with captain Kohli, who made a dazzling 122 off 105 balls, studded with five sixes and eight fours. 

At times, the local boy overshadowed his famous captain with the range of his shots and the duo’s 200-run partnership in 24.3 overs after India were down in the dumps lifted the hosts to 263 for 5. Although both he and Kohli got out before finishing the job, Hardik Pandya (40 not out) and Ravichandran Ashwin (15 not out) guided India past the finish line. 

Morgan, however, said that his side had done their homework on Jadhav before the game. “We’ve watched the footage of the international matches that he’s played in. We were not necessarily caught off guard. We did as much as we could homework-wise,” he explained.