India's Number 3, Cheteshwar Pujara faces criticism from Australian legends for his approach towards batting this season. Pujara answered back with half century in the first innings of the third Test
In the ongoing Test series down under, former greats and
many others are lashing out at the slow scoring rate of India's number 3, Cheteshwar Pujara.
Former Cricket legends like Ricky Ponting and Allan Border criticized his style
of batting in the on going Test series. Border came up with comments like, “He
is almost scared to play a shot”. Pujara recently came up with a fitting reply
quoting that he has to bat in this manner. The Australian greats are lashing
out on Pujara, at a time when the entire Australian team was not able to get
out of the blocks in the first two test scoring at a modest run rate of 2.6 per
over in the first innings of the first Test, again 2.6 runs per over in the
first innings and 1.9 runs per over in the second innings of the second Test.
Not much of a different in the style of batting and the
approach, in 2018-19 series, he was the highest run getter with 521 runs
guiding India to win the Test series Down Under. The conversion rate was much
better in that series. That was the only difference. He has a particular role to
serve which is more into anchoring the innings helping others to play around
him. Comparing both these series, there is a definite difference between the
other Indian batsmen getting runs. The team was getting starts from Mayank,
Kohli, Rahane, Rohit, Pant were all amongst runs in the 2018-19 tour and was able to play around
Pujara and he was able to anchor the innings. The failure of others are
currently haunting the team in this series and it will just be a matter of time before a
turnaround.
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The wall and his disciple |
The same role was once play by the legend, Rahul Dravid who
had a lesser carrier strike rate than Pujara. The fact the India was blessed
with the start Sehwag used to give with a strike rate of more almost 100 most
times and sometimes above 100 and then Sachin and Saurav coming out with an
aggressive style of batting used to cover up for the low scoring rate by Dravid
which enabled him to come out and play as he did throughout his career. Pujara has been
instrumental in taking the Indian team’s performance to the level that it is
now. The fact that he is having to bat and build partnership with multiple
partners as the opening slot has been changed time and time again definitely is
a task in itself and he is justifying his role and also adjusting with the
different batting partners he is thrown in with. A two match bad performance
does not make him a bad player. He has been contributing in the same way since
his debut in Test Cricket and has been successful, scoring almost 6000 runs at
an average of 48. He is ranked number 10 in the ICC rankings and he knows how to
shut his critics. Coming out of quarantine, facing three of the best quicks going
around in fast and bouncy pitches can take a toll on the best of players. He
has already notched up a half century in the first innings of the ongoing Test
and hoping to see his consistency comes back and answers his critics.
By Sayandeep Dutta
Follow My Blogs at: https://stumpmiccricket.blogspot.com/
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