Ravindra Jadeja is undoubtedly one of the finest all-rounders in the world. Making his debut in 2009, Jadeja has played 174 ODIs, 64 T20Is, and 65 Tests and has taken 510 wickets. Apart from shinning with the ball, Jadeja has also scored a whopping total of 5689 international runs. During the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Trophy against Australia, earlier this year, the 34-year all-rounder emerged as joint Player of the Series with Ravichandran Ashwin. Despite all these heroics, former Australia Matthew Hayden went on to compare Pakistan all-rounder Shadab Khan with Jadeja.
On being asked to pick Pakistan's main spinner for the upcoming ODI World Cup, Hayden called Shadab a "three-dimensional" player like Jadeja and praised him for having variations in his bowling.
"Shadab Khan is a fantastic player. He is an individual of absolute quality. Like Jaddu (Ravindra Jadeja), he is a three-dimensional cricketer. He is a dangerous hitter with the bat. He has got the variations with the ball and he is also a wonderful fielder, and just one further point around this - you win World Cups by fielding efforts," Hayden told Star Sports.
Shadab has scored 631 runs at a strike rate of 82.05 in 33 ODI innings. He has scalped 73 wickets at a reasonable economy rate of 5.13 in the 54 innings that he has bowled in the ODI format.
The Australia great went on to point out the importance of fielding in the World Cup and stated that a team like Australia is really "dangerous" due to their effort on the field.
"They are the little things that you don't see, that make a big difference in tournament cricket. Under pressure, those catches around the boundaries, those specially unique run-outs that happen, they are the things that will never really be statistically noted in the World Cup," he added.
"That's why sides like Australia are really dangerous because they combine really well under pressure in the one thing, an element of cricket which is the most selfless, and that's effort in the field."