In fact, former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly had also praised him for his innings of 143 against Bengal while Jalaj shared the dressing room with Ganguly during his stint with the Delhi Capitals in IPL 2019. That served as a big confidence booster for him.

"It's a privilege and a dream come true when I shared the dressing room with personalities like Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly during my stint with the Delhi Capitals this year. It was an amazing experience. I interacted with Ganguly a lot and I was chuffed when he told me that he saw my innings against Bengal in the Ranji Trophy. I scored a century and he said that it was a brilliant knock. So, those words of appreciation boosted my confidence a lot."

This kind of performance was only a follow up act to his all-round contributions for Kerala during the 2017/18 Ranji season. He had done even better then as he had emerged as the leading wicket-taker that season with 44 wickets in seven matches at a mean average of 17.11 and had also amassed 522 runs with the bat at an outstanding average of 52.20, which made him the second highest run-getter for Kerala that season.