"I have seen you here for so many days," Jadeja told me. "I know many players who would have invited you to their room and offered you tea or other drinks to get a good article written about themselves. I don't need it. I don't go around announcing new balls, I don't go around saying I am ready, I just do my work."
I told him I was not there to help him come back to the Indian team. I was there to talk about his childhood. Jadeja was miserly with stories. He told me about the days when he didn't even know this thing he played - bat-ball - was called cricket. Never as a child did he think he would make a living out of playing bat-ball. It was just his true love. Being in an open field, running after a ball, diving despite the hard surfaces, exerting himself despite the oppressive heat.
He told me he acquired his shoulder injury during a fielding drill in Australia before the World Cup. When the shoulder is not 100%, he said, you lose that control. It is not about just putting the ball there, you have to put the action on the ball. The bigger victim of such an injury is the confidence.
He was aware of his public image to the point of resentment. He was aware of the "Sir Ravindra Jadeja" jokes. He was also aware that his closeness to Dhoni is considered to have given him more than he deserves. Asked about that, he said, "Dhoni bhai is not an idiot. He knows he has to win to survive. Why will he pick players who will come in the way of his winning?"
About the Twitter jokes, he just laughed dismissively. It was almost like he was saying, "I used to be beaten in the middle of the field for bowling a bad ball. I have seen much worse at home. Do you think these things bother me?" For the record, Jadeja said, "I know whose opinion matters. I know whom to listen to. I know whom to trust."
"How did you learn it?"
"Life. Life teaches you."
There was deep resentment at his treatment by the selectors and the administration. He mentioned his 24 wickets in his only full series at home, against Australia in 2013. He wondered why he hadn't got another Test in similar conditions. I asked him what the message from the selectors had been. None, he said. I asked him if he had kept in touch with them.
This is when Kotak said: "Chhatrapati? In touch? He doesn't answer anybody's phone nowadays."
In 2014 Jadeja tweeted a message that read, "Need new HATERS the old ones are starting to like me"
That must be the old number he gave me, I said.
No, said Kotak. "It doesn't matter if he loses crores for not answering the phone, but he doesn't. The only way to get in touch with him is to text him, and then he might or might not call back."
At the time of writing Jadeja had made a grand comeback to the Test side, with 23 South African wickets in seven innings at 10.82. He scored crucial lower-order runs, rescuing India repeatedly from 120-odd for 5 or 6. He is firmly the No. 2 spinner in home conditions. He did it as he had done the first time around: without favours, without PR. He is probably taking calls too now.
In 27 years Jadeja has seen more ups and downs than most do in entire lives. On the cricket field he torments Michael Clarke one series in one set of conditions, and becomes the popgun firing darts after dropping a crucial catch in another. He scores three triple-centuries in domestic cricket, but they have brought him more ridicule than admiration. Off the field he is a boy born into poverty who has gone on to discover the splendour that fits his last name by being a loyal foot soldier. And yet that royal life loses its charm in the absence of cricket. A black Accent somewhere in his collection of flashy cars and motorbikes still says, "Life is cricket."
Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
