Counsel from skipper, coach helps Pujara step it up
Even on this wicket he was scoring at 65, almost 70 strike rate. It was a revelation to see Pujara bat that way. We didn’t want him to go into a shell
NEW DELHI: The Duleep Trophy before the New Zealand series was a chance for Cheteshwar Pujara to get back to form. He had lost his spot in the Test squad owing to a slow strike rate of 23 in the West Indies, and the scores 16 off 67 balls and 46 off 159 led Kohli to bench him.
But in Duleep Trophy, Pujara was employed a different strategy. In the first game against India Green, Pujara scored 166 off 280 balls at a strike rate of 59.28.
He stepped it up further in the second innings, scoring 31 off 35 balls at a rate of 88.57. In the final against India Red, Pujara scored an unbeaten 256 off 363 balls and the strike rate was a little over 70.
One of the aspects of his batting was to step down the track and attack the spinners. Against VIRAT KOHLI, India Test captain on Pujara’s performance in first match
Red, Pujara stepped out nearly 40 times to put them under pressure. The Duleep Trophy was helpful as Pujara continued his form against New Zealand.
He scored two fifties and was seen stepping out more often. His 62 off 109 balls and 78 off 152 had strike rates of 56.88 and 51.31. There was an indication that Pujara might have been briefed by Kohli and coach Anil Kumble.
“Pujara is someone who absorbs pressure well, but after a certain stage in the innings there comes a time when the team needs runs,” Kohli said after the Kanpur Test.
“That’s where we felt he has the ability to capitalise. It was about conveying that to him. He has worked hard on his game.”
In November 2012 at Ahmedabad, Pujara got a double century against England in the first Test. He played 389 balls, hit 21 boundaries at a strike rate of 52.95. A year later against Australia in Hyderabad, Pujara collected another double (204) off 341 deliveries at a strike rate of under 60.
“Even on this wicket he was scoring at 65, almost 70 strike rate. It was a revelation to see Pujara bat that way. If you see his double hundreds against England and Australia, he dominated spinners. That’s exactly what we wanted him to do. We didn’t want him to go into a shell,” said Kohli. The legacy of India’s spin tradition is so rich and varied that putting Ravichandran Ashwin ahead of the past greats, despite his phenomenal wicket-taking ability, would be unfair to the bowler himself, as he would agree.
At 30, Ashwin is at the peak of his craft, especially when it comes to exploiting home conditions and suffices to say that he is inching there, creating a pedestal for himself which belongs to a few.
Despite his introduction to the cricketing world through T20 cricket, Ashwin is a traditionalist and not one who believes controlling runs is the prime job