ENG vs IND 2018: When You Are Playing Away From Home, It’s Not About Scoring Big Hundreds: Cheteshwar Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara, on Monday, said that not personal milestones but collective effort makes the difference while playing in tough overseas conditions.

For the first time in the series so far, more or less all the batsmen have contributed. As a result, India are firmly on the driver’s seat. In both the innings, KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan gave a good start by sharing fifty-plus partnership. Virat Kohli found support in both the innings as he scored 97 and 103.

In the first, Ajinkya Rahane scored 81 to share an 159-run stand with the skipper. In the second essay, Cheteshwar Pujara scored 72 as he and Kohli shared 113 for the third wicket. The likes of Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya then played handy knocks to extend India’s dominance.

By the time, India declared their innings, the scoreboard was reading 352 for 7, thus setting the hosts an improbable target of 521. In reply, England finished the day on 23 for no loss.

And speaking at the end of day’s play, Pujara perfectly summed up the importance of collective displays in overseas games.

“When you are playing away from home, it’s not about scoring big hundreds. It is about having enough runs on the board, collectively. Maybe sometimes the openers (didn’t) score more than 30-40 runs, but they are quite valuable for the team. Personally, I always want to score a hundred in any game I play, but at the same time you have to be realistic,” he said.

Unlike day two when Indian batsmen scored nearly at a run-rate of 5, Kohli and Pujara started the proceedings on day three slowly. With a massive 292-run lead already in the bag, the ploy baffled many. The duo scored just 70 in the first session. When asked about the cautious approach, Pujara said:

“You just have to respect the conditions and the way they bowled,” he said about the slow start. “We had our game plan and stuck to it. Can’t reveal much about what our plan was, but I think we won that session.”

The right-hander further lavished praise on Kohli who scored his 23rd Test century and second of the series.

“He batted brilliantly. He has been batting well since the first Test. He is in good touch and is making the most of it. Some shots which he is playing on this pitch are very difficult for any other batsman to execute,” he said.