Image Source : GETTY IMAGES File picture of Cheteshwar Pujara (proper) and Pat Cummins.
Australia tempo spearhead Pat Cummins describes Cheteshwar Pujara as a “brick wall”, whose wicket he focused as soon as captain Virat Kohli returned dwelling after the primary Test in the course of the latest collection in opposition to India.
Kohli missed the final three Tests of the collection which India received 2-1 as he returned dwelling on a paternity depart.
Cummins, who was Australia vice-captain for the four-match Test collection, mentioned Pujara turned out to be the deciding issue together with his rock stable performances with the bat.
“My preliminary thought was that he (Pujara) was the brick wall, so as soon as we opened up his finish, I believed that also made all three ends in the sport potential, profitable, shedding or a draw. But it was satisfying too: earlier than the collection, as soon as we knew Virat (Kohli) was going to overlook the final three Tests, Pujara was the large wicket for me.
“He was the deciding factor in the series a couple of years earlier – he was their rock in middle order – and I felt a big part of the series battle would be played out against him,” the speedster was quoted as saying in Espncricinfo’s ‘The Cricket Monthly’.
“He was a huge deciding factor in them drawing Sydney and then winning at the Gabba, so he certainly made a big mark on the series.”
One of the highlights of the collection was the competition between Pujara and Cummins. While Cummins obtained the higher of Pujara 5 instances in eight innings, Pujara made 271 runs whereas going through 928 balls, which included series-defining contributions in Sydney and Brisbane.
“After the first two games, I thought he (Pujara) might have had to adapt to try to take the game on a little bit more and put pressure back on the bowlers,” mentioned Cummins who took 21 wickets from the 4 matches.
“But if anything, he went the other way. He went, ‘No, I know my game so well, I’m going to just bat and bat and scoring will take care of itself’ – whether it’s down the other end or later in his innings…a lot of the time he was there just to face out the tough spells, bat and bat and bat…”
The 27-year-old Cummins mentioned for a bowler, Pujara is a really tough buyer to bowl at as he’s by no means intimidated by something.
“With somebody who does not look to take the sport on, you’re feeling like you’ll be able to experiment just a little bit extra, perhaps be just a little extra aggressive in bowling a contact fuller, attempt to swing the ball, mess around along with your crease place.
“But on the flip side, if the batter’s good enough to get through that and they can bat and bat, it doesn’t really matter what you bowl at them. It really comes down to the fact that if he doesn’t bat lots of time you feel great and love bowling to him. If he does, you go, okay, well, his method is obviously working,” he mentioned.
Pujara endured many a painful blows on his physique in his dogged 56-run knock in a 211-ball vigil to put the muse for India’s historic three-wicket win within the remaining Test in Brisbane.
“…it’s incredibly rare that someone gets hit on his body and wears so many bruises without trying something…he really stuck to his processes,” Cummins mentioned.
“…it’s like a pillow (Pujara’s soft hands). Just soft hands, plays it incredibly late, you can see why someone like that is so hard to dislodge, because there aren’t edges flying to the slip cordon.”
Cummins additionally lauded Rishabh Pant, who was one of many architects of India’s profitable run chase in Brisbane with an aggressive unbeaten 89.
“He (Pant) is a class player, he takes the game on and to the outside it might look like it’s quite slapdash, but he knows his game really well, he knows when to attack and what his scoring areas are, so before next series we’ll need to spend a bit of time on that.”
