With the bat, he has been more than an honest trier; he is gutsy and compelling. With the ball, he has been a bewitching bowler with a knack for bringing down batters with accuracy and a cunning mind. As a fielder, he is an excellent athlete, a showstopper in short, and takes centre stage in a jiffy. Raised in the rough and rugged terrains of Jamnagar, a region that boasts of a fantastic cricketing legacy, and the urban Rajkot, the rustic-looking all-rounder, after roughing it out in domestic and international competitions for eighteen summers, has turned out to be a master craftsman of left-arm slow spin with his inimitable style. As a serious practitioner of left-arm spin, he may not be akin to the likes of the classical Bishen Singh Bedi, Dileep Doshi, Venkatapathy Raju, Maninder Singh, Sunil Joshi, Pragyan Ojha, but fits into the mould of the very artful and cunning Vinoo Mankad, the smart Ravi Shastri, curmudgeon-like Bapoo Nadkarni and the versatile Salim Durani - all of whom were proficient with the bat, too. Jadeja has surpassed all of them possessing high-end skills in all three departments with aplomb. The likes of Padmakar Shivalkar and Rajinder Goel were unlucky and were not capped even once. Such was the talent India possessed, and Bedi's 266 wickets over 13 years from 1966 showed the enormous skill he had to keep his competitors at a distance. With the selection committee looking for a second cutting-edge ability in an individual in the last two decades, Jadeja had everything going for him, and he has been good with different facets of the game, without an iota of doubt. In the second Test against Bangladesh at the Green Park, Kanpur, Jadeja achieved a remarkable milestone of 300 wickets to add to his 3000 plus runs, only the second of the bowler of his ilk to accomplish the terrific numbers after New Zealand's Daniel Vettori who in 113 Tests scored 4631 runs, bagged 362 wickets and held 58 catches. In the inaugural year of the IPL in 2008 - the Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne predicted that Jadeja - all of 20 years then - would be the future rockstar of Indian cricket. A genius of leg-spin googly bowling, Warne based his prophecy on seeing a bony Jadeja's fielding and catching skills at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur and elsewhere in the country. How true it has turned out to be! Jadeja, who will turn 36 on December 6, has proved to be a great asset, wearing the flannels and wearing blue. Jadeja-who is only the third left-arm spinner to take 300+ wickets after Sri Lanka's Rangana Herath (433 in 93 Tests) and Vettori (362 in 113)-has been capped 74 times (303 wickets) and has featured in 47 wins, thirty at home. Jadeja's winning hit is nine Tests more than Herath's 38 and Vettori's 34, a performance the Australians would liken to a bonzer. Come to think of it, Jadeja began his first-class career playing the inter-zonal Duleep Trophy (2006) for West Zone and going wicketless against South Zone in October at Indore. Two months afterwards in the Ranji Trophy debut for Saurashtra against Andhra at the Race Course ground, Rajkot, he failed to get a wicket sending down 16 overs in the first innings. In between these two matches, he got the wicket of Upul Chandana (Sri Lanka A) in his second Duleep Trophy match. But it was at the Race Course Ground and the new stadium in Khanderi that Jadeja got into the habit of routing opponents. He was virtually unplayable on the arid pitches, especially those prepared by Rasillal Makwana, the ground curator. Jadeja's bowling style has stayed the same: a straight and short run-up to the bowling crease and the deployment of his left hand targeting the stumps. It is straightforward. But loaded with much intent and deception. He has the stock ball - leaving the right-hander. And the arm ball and other variations in trajectory, line, and length. After his debut in December 2013, he has missed 40 Test matches for various reasons, but he is still the best left-arm spinner the cricketing world has seen after his debut. Like fast bowlers, the game's history is replete with spinners also hunting in pairs. In Jadeja's case, it was the redoubtable off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who has 527 wickets in 102 Tests. Together, they have taken 228 wickets in 105 innings at 22.55. For Jadeja, accuracy has been his strength, and the results have been visible in the mode of dismissals he has effected: bowled 70, leg before 63, caught off his own bowling 11 and caught by the wicketkeeper, 30 and stamped 11; all, adding to 185 out of 303. The remaining 118 were all caught in the deep victims. As an all-rounder, Jadeja has stamped his authority. He is third behind Herath and Vettori in the all-time list of left-arm finger spinners. His immediate competitor in India is Axar Patel, but it's unlikely that the Gujarati from Nadiad will displace the achiever from Rajkot anytime soon.