Must utilise my opportunities: Jadhav

After being dismissed for a duck in the fourth One-Day International against New Zealand, rookie middle-order batsman Kedar Jadhav is determined to grab his chances and cement his place in the Indian team.

Jadhav, who made his ODI debut in 2014, is yet to click as a batsman and admitted that he will have to learn quickly.

"Obviously I have missed opportunities, specially in the last game. But these are early stages for me and Manish (Pandey). We need to grab these opportunities which are thrown at us. We need to learn quickly from the opportunities we have missed," Jadhav told reporters here on Friday.

"It's all about taking this responsibility and accepting the challenge that comes at you and then, coming out of the challenge successfully," he added.

"That is what international cricket is all about, delivering when it matters most for the team."

The 31-year-old from Pune, who was brought into the team as a replacement for an indisposed Suresh Raina, has proved to be quite handy with the ball.

He has bowled 18 overs in four games during the ongoing series, taking six wickets for 73 runs at a decent economy rate of 4.05.

"I guess it is both, a bit of my action and pace variations. I use different variations according to different batsmen and that makes it difficult to read I guess," Jadhav said on the eve of the fifth ODI.

"Mahi bhai (skipper M.S. Dhoni) always wants one bowler from the top five-six in the batting order. A batsman who can bowl five or six overs. It helps is some bowler has a bad day," he added.

Star batsman Virat Kohli has been in superb form recently, including an unbeaten 154 in the third ODI.

Jadhav, however, insisted that the Indian batting line-up is not over-dependent on the Delhi lad.

"Virat is a great player and it's always nice if he scores. It makes life easy for the batsmen coming next to get whatever runs (possible). But it's not like that (we're overdependent on him). We have too many quality batsmen in the team and we need to deliver whenever we get the opportunity," he said.

--IANS

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