Australia vs India 2018: Other Batsmen Must Learn from Cheteshwar Pujara - Sourav Ganguly

Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly believes other batsmen must learn from Cheteshwar Pujara. The right-handed batsman was the pick of the Indian batsman as he scored the lion’s share of the total. Pujara scored 123 out of the total 250, which is almost 50% of the runs. Thus, Pujara’s knock was imperative to keep India in the game as he put a high price on his wicket.

On the other hand, there was no application from the other Indian batsmen. They kept flirting with the outside off stump deliveries and had to pay the price of their wickets for their loose shots.

“We didn’t see many seams and bounce on this pitch and Adelaide is probably the best pitch to bat on in Australia. Indian batsmen could have scored more on this track after winning the toss and opting to bat,” Ganguly told IndiaTV during ‘Cricket Ki Baat’ show.

Therefore, it was a big lesson for the Indian team batsman, “Hang in there, you will eventually get runs”. Furthermore, Indian batters paid no heed to, “Give the first hour to the bowlers”.

“Indian batsmen have failed in their shot selection. It was a loose batting display from the visitors. You can’t play so many drives early on while batting in England, Australia and South Africa. Indian batsmen tend to play a lot of drives early on and especially on this sort of pitches. KL Rahul, Murali Vijay and Virat Kohli got dismissed playing similar shots. The worst dismissal was of Ajinkya Rahane. He played a ball which was too far,” Ganguly said.

In fact, all the Indian top order batsmen looked in a hurry as if they had unfinished business in the dressing room. Moreover, they were unnecessarily aggressive in their shot making.

“When Pujara came out to bat in the morning, he took 70 balls to score 11 runs. This is how Test cricket is being played. You must give respect to the bowlers when the Kookaburra ball is new. Pujara started playing his shots only after Lunch. This is exactly how batting in Test cricket should be and the other batsmen need to learn from Pujara.

Pujara was able to define the real Test cricket innings as he didn’t give up despite losing his partners at the other end. The right-hander kept fighting and scored 77 runs in the final session after changing gears.

Consequently, Pujara left a big note for his colleague batters, “I might not be as fluent as you, but I can get runs when the going gets tough”.