Former Australian captain-turned pundit Ricky Ponting has reckoned that Cheteshwar Pujara’s approach for the major part of his innings in Sydney on day 03 wasn’t the right one as, adding that the Indian No.3 could have been more proactive. Cheteshwar Pujara’s defensive batting was once again a talking point during India’s innings. The champion No.3 batsman managed just 16 runs off the first 100 deliveries that he faced. He scored his first run of the day off the 33rd delivery. Pujara eventually showed a bit of positive intent as he stroked three boundaries off the next balls he faced as he regularly stepped out of the crease against Nathan Lyon. Cheteshwar Pujara [Image Credits: Twitter]The Indian No.3 went on to register the slowest Test fifty of his career (in 174 balls) before he once again fell to his nemesis, Pat Cummins. Ponting, on Saturday, engaged with his fans on Twitter via Question-Answer session where he was asked about his views on Pujara’s approach by one of the users. “How do you rate Pujara’s initial batting- 16 of 100 balls at such a great surface to bat on? Is that a right approach here?,” asked a user. Ponting replied that according to him Cheteshwar Pujara’s approach wasn’t the right one and that the No.3 needed to be a bit more proactive with his scoring rate since it put too much pressure on his batting partners. “I don’t think it was the right approach, I think he needed to be a bit more proactive with his scoring rate because I felt it was putting too much pressure on his batting partners,” Ponting replied.
Nevertheless, Pujara still ended up as the joint-leading run-scorer for India alongside Shubman Gill as the rest of the batting-unit once again failed to step up to the occasion, eventually getting dismissed for 244.
