AGARWAL’S LEARNT THE FINE ART OF CONVERSION
Pune, Oct. 10: For someone who smashed 1,000 first-class runs in a month’s domestic cricket in 2017, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a heavy duty scorer like Mayank Agarwal knows a thing or two about the art of conversion, feels Cheteshwar Pujara.
Agarwal, a relatively new entrant to the Test arena, has scored his second Test hundred in as many games against South Africa, starting with a double hundred in the series opener in Visakhapatnam.
“He (Agarwal) is an experienced player, who has scored so many firstclass runs, which has helped him a lot. And when it comes to being nervous in his 90s, he is someone who is fearless,” Pujara replied, when asked about the Karnataka opener showing little sign of nerves.
Pujara has seen a lot of Agarwal in the domestic arena and believes it is the consistent scores in domestic cricket that has made him what he is today. “Mayank knows how to convert fifties into big scores and at the same time, once he goes past hundred, he can score heavily as we saw in the last game,” said Pujara, who was involved in a 138run stand with the centurion and himself made a valuable 58.
Pujara himself is someone with a penchant for big knocks. So did he tell anything to Mayank while their partnership was on? “That habit (for big scores) has come from (playing) first class cricket, so I didn’t have to tell him much. To be honest, we were just communicating what their gameplan was. If there was an error in his batting, I would just tell him to play close to his body, when I thought his bat was going away. Apart from that, he is batting really well and you don’t have to guide him much,” he said.
Pujara was happy with the track on offer. “It’s a true pitch, where if a fast bowler is bowling well, he can also get a batsman out and if you are batsman, there is value for your shots. There was little bit of spin later on too,” he said.
Mayank knows how to convert fifties into big scores and at the same time, once he goes past hundred, he can score heavily as we saw in the last game. That habit (for big scores) has come from (playing) first class cricket. — CHETESHWAR PUJARA
Indian batsman