England vs India 2018: Excessive defense is not helping Cheteshwar Pujara - Mohinder Amarnath

Easily, Cheteshwar Pujara falls under the defensive batsman list of the modern era. Perhaps, he might top the list as well. Though having a defense is the solid armour for a batsman, it might see the wrong side of the things when the team isn’t required that. Meanwhile, Mohinder Amarnath has a suggestion.

The former India legendary figure Mohinder Amarnath wants Cheteshwar Pujara and Co to play more shots rather than being on the defensive side. Amarnath also pointed of batsman’s predetermined strokes.

Mohinder Amarnath mentions two substantial problems of Indian batsmen:

The son of Lala Amarnath, Mohinder furtherly spoke about the Indian batsmen poor tactics of predetermined foot movement and inability to play with soft hands. He feels the team should be in an attacking mode.

Speaking of Cheteshwar Pujara, he added Pujara’s over-blocking is hurting team India. He went on to add Pujara’s over-defensive is pushing the other batsmen to score runs.

”The pre-determined movement to the front foot and the inability to play with soft hands are conspiring to create a situation where the batsmen are prodding at the ball. The other problem is excessive defence,” Amarnath wrote in his column for the Times of India.

“Cheteshwar Pujara, for instance, has a sound technique which helps him occupy the crease for long. However, he tends to stop scoring and if a wicket falls at the other end, the scoreboard looks dismal, putting further pressure on the incoming batsman. A reluctance to rotate strike among the batsmen yields advantage to the bowlers.”

Other batsmen should study Virat Kohli’s play: Mohinder Amarnath

Meanwhile, the man of the match in India’s World Cup triumph at Lords in 1983 asked the other batsmen to learn from Virat Kohli.

He felt the Indian skipper gracefully changed his game to play moving the ball as well.

“Our batsmen would do well to study how Virat Kohli is playing, with shots off the backfoot. He has tweaked his game so that he can deal with the moving ball. The rest, too, do not have to curb their style – they simply need to make adjustments in their footwork to ensure they are compact at the crease.,” Amarnath.

However, it would be interesting to see how Indian batsmen would cope up with Trent Bridge conditions. Both the experienced campaigners of England, Stuart Broad and James Anderson have sterling records at the venue.

However, the third game of the five-match Test series begins on Saturday (August 18th).