ENG Vs IND 2018: Cheteshwar Pujara's Struggle Due to Conditions - Martyn Moxon

Yorkshire Director, Martyn Moxon said that Cheteshwar Pujara struggle is due to the English conditions. Pujara is the backbone of the Indian middle order. However, Pujara has failed to hit the ground running before the England vs India Test series.

Pujara has scored 172 runs in the 12 innings while playing for Yorkshire in the County season. Therefore, Pujara averaged a mere 14.33 for his County. Furthermore, Pujara scored only one run in the first innings of the warm-up match against Essex. The right-hander scored 23 runs in the second shot.

Pujara is going to be crucial for India’s Success.

Martyn Moxon said that Pujara was the prey of some poor umpiring decisions. Furthermore, Pujara was run-out on a couple of occasions. In fact, Pujara has had his issues with his running. The Saurashtra batsman was out in the same fashion on the South African tour.

Martyn Moxon said while talking to Indian Express, “In the four-day stuff, he obviously didn’t get the volume of runs that we would have expected or we would have liked. He actually did really well for us in 50-over cricket. But at the start of the year, he had a couple of poor LBW decisions and ran himself out as well. That didn’t help him with his rhythm getting into the season. There was so much rain in the early part of the season when he played. The pitches were very seamer-friendly, so it was not easy for anybody to bat long, to be honest. There’s a bit of reasoning behind him not scoring the runs. The pitches were a little bit tricky”.

The Yorkshire Director added that there is no glitch in Pujara’s technique. However, he hasn’t got himself going. In fact, he has just found a way to get himself out, which is frustrating for both Yorkshire and Pujara.

Pujara will like to get back amongst the runs:

“No, there’s nothing in particular from the technical point of view. His alignment and balance were fine this time. He worked extremely hard on his game. He was the model professional in that respect. He just didn’t get going. There were times when you thought, this is the day he’s going to go and make a big one. But then he found a way of getting himself out. He’s as frustrated as we were, but there wasn’t anything technical to be bothered about”.

Furthermore, Martyn Moxon added that Cheteshwar Pujara has struggled against the moving ball as well as the English conditions. However, Moxon went on to add that conditions will not be adverse in upcoming Test series.

“I don’t think so. It was just the moving ball. You look at the scores around the country in that period, there weren’t many batsmen scoring a lot of runs. Since, Pujara played Championship cricket for us, we’ve had a heatwave. There may be less sideways movement during the Test series than what he encountered in county cricket this year”.

Consequently, Pujara will like to get past his County season demons. The Indian number three batsman is solid as a rock and he knows his role. Pujara will like to play time and make the job of the following batsmen easier.