Still Have Aspiration To Play White-Ball Cricket For Team India: Cheteshwar Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara, the bedrock of the Indian Test team, has revealed that he still has aspirations of representing the country in white-ball cricket besides opening up on the issues that he faced in preparing for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy despite having not played competitive cricket for the best part of 10 months.

Pujara is a red-ball specialist, who has featured in just 5 One-day Internationals for Team India. He doesn’t play the IPL either. And, so with no First-Class cricket taking place due to Covid-19, Cheteshwar Pujara, along with Hanuma Vihari, who is also a red-ball specialist, did not have any practice whatsoever even as their teammates got decent game time in the Indian Premier League.

Pujara played just one practice game (against Australia A) leading into the marquee series and the Indian No.3 had admitted that it took him a couple of Test matches before he regained his groove.

‘I still have aspirations to play white-ball cricket for Team India, there’s no doubt about that. Yes, at the same time it becomes difficult when other guys are getting some match practice,” Cheteshwar Pujara told Boria Majumdar on Sports Today.

“After the lockdown I didn’t have any match practice before the Australia tour so to prepare for that big series it became a little difficult. Otherwise if there was no COVID then there would have been some first-class games which I would have played,” he added.

“But because of the COVID lockdown there were not many FC games which I could play. I only played 1 game (warm-up match) before the Test series started so as a batter it was difficult to gain the rhythm, concentration,” he said. Early on it was difficult but as I started playing few more games, it took me a couple of Test matches to find the right way (to bat in Australia),” Pujara added.

‘Credit also goes to the Australian team because they did a lot of homework’- Cheteshwar Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara was the major thorn in Australia’s flesh during Team India’s historic triumph in 2018/19.

The Indian No.3 not only scored as many as 521 runs with three centuries but he also faced more than 1200 deliveries.

This time, the Australian bowlers, especially Pat Cummins, came prepared for the champion cricketer. Pujara credits the Aussies for the homework they did on him post the last series but added that as he found his rhythm after a couple of Tests, he was able to break their gameplan in Sydney and Brisbane.

“Credit also goes to the Australian team because they did a lot of homework on what I did on the last series there,” Pujara said. It wasn’t easy to break that gameplan but after a couple of Test matches I found my rhythm, concentration back, I trusted what I was doing and I was able to score runs in the last two Tests,” he added.

After having struggled in the first two Tests, Pujara played two brilliant fourth-innings knocks of 77 (205) and 56 (211) in which he blunted the Aussie attack, paving the way for the rest of his batting partners to cash-in big time.

Also Read: ” I Had To Grip The Bat With Four Fingers, It Wasn’t Natural”- Cheteshwar Pujara