Pujara shines on gloomy day
Puddles became ponds, and ponds became lakes at the Eden Gardens, where a riveting contest was halted again by incessant rain. Amidst the chaos of rain interruptions, a minefield of a pitch, and nagging bowling, stood Cheteshwar Pujara, unbeaten on 47. The best 47 he has ever got, according to India's fielding coach R Sridhar. It doesn't sound much but when you consider the fact that in a score of 74 for five none of the batsmen dismissed reached or looked like reaching double figures, the picture becomes clearer.
The uncharacteristically grassy surface at the Eden Gardens was supposed to put India out of their comfort zone - a challenge Virat Kohli wanted his team to embrace, especially with a string of overseas tours looming. A noble idea, undoubtedly. But what they were confronted with, having lost an important toss and asked to bat by Sri Lanka, would have had most teams around the world groping in the dark, without many answers. There was late movement in the air, given the overcast skies, coupled with extravagant deviation off the wicket for the pacers, one witnesses only in England in early April or May.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, it was Pujara, with a game built around the erstwhile virtue of crease occupation, who reveled, while others who didn’t do much wrong either, failed.
‘Pujara has got a grip of every condition when he goes in to bat. It was quite simple the game-plan, to play as close to your body and try to play straight. Pujara's innings, the standout feature was most of his runs went to the right of mid-off, he had a narrow V. It was probably one of the best 47 runs I have seen from Pujara,’ said Sridhar.
There isn’t much humanly possible on a cricket field that Pujara hasn’t achieved over the last couple of years. On his return to the Test side in 2015, he scored an unbeaten 145 batting out of position, as an opener, in the deciding Test at the SSC against Sri Lanka. There too, not many of the other batsmen came to terms with a seamer-friendly pitch. In Ranchi against Australia earlier this year, Pujara’s marathon knock of 202 was the longest in terms of balls played (525) by an Indian batsman. A Test before that, he grafted a series changing 92 on a raging turner in Bengaluru. The same calendar year, he ended as the ninth-highest run-getter in Test cricket. This year, he stands even firmer on four, closing in on 900 runs.
Once, accused of batting too slowly, Pujara has become India’s man for the crisis. Much like Rahul Dravid had back in 2002, when he scored an epochal 148 at Headingly, to which this pitch in Kolkata bears an uncanny resemblance. Many of the attributes that stood Pujara out according to Sridhar, were also synonymous with Dravid, whose shoes Pujara was touted to fill from the outset. At the time, the prophecy seemed premature. Now, it seems inevitable.