Cheteshwar Pujara, the man who just doesn’t get out

CHENNAI: It was the Irani Cup. Wriddhiman Saha had just smashed a match-winning double hundred to notch up an unlikely win for Rest of India against Gujarat. Asked for a reaction, Saha said: “I felt all the more comfortable because Puji was at the other end, uska out honeka koi sawal hi nahin hain.”
“No chance of getting out” - that sums up Cheteshwar Pujara’s batting, whose 182 in the Ranji Trophy match against Gujarat on Sunday helped him get into the top-10 averages for players who have more than 10,000 runs in first-class cricket.The list is headed by Sir Don Bradman and has five Aussies and five Indians. The Indian cricketer just ahead of Pujara is Sachin Tendulkar.
While Pujara is a lynchpin of the Indian batting line-up, he is a monster when it comes to domestic cricket. Rival captains are scared of the Saurashtra player while the domestic bowlers at times find him “irritating”.
Ranadeb Bose, a domestic stalwart and the current Bengal bowling coach, was spot on when he said “you don’t know where to bowl to Pujara”. “I got him out early on in his career at Eden Gardens with an off-cutter, but I can assure you he won’t get out to that ball now. As a bowler or a bowling coach at times you will go mad strategizing against Pujara. Bowl him an outswinger, he won’t play. Bowl him a bouncer and he will duck. Ask him to drive and he will push and steal a single. And when you get one on his legs, he will pick you for runs,” Ranadeb said.
“The bowling community feels it is easier to bowl to a quality attacking batsman than to somebody like Pujara. Somebody like a Shikhar Dhawan may get 150, but he will take chances and you as a bowler feel there’s a chance. But Pujara will just let kill you with his patience,” Ranadeb said.
Patience is another key word that has made Pujara the player that he is today. Both in domestic and international cricket, the right-hander is never shy of buying time. His strike-rate isn’t great, he knows he will not get an IPL contract, but Pujara doesn’t care. Every summer, when all the attention is around IPL, Pujara is invariably in England, playing county cricket. The hard grind of the English summer makes him a better player in the longer format and Pujara seems at peace with the Test player’s tag.
S Badrinath, another prolific scorer in domestic cricket who has 10,245 runs first-class runs, feels it is Pujara’s ability to cut out the risk factor that makes him such a difficult batsman.
“He will just refuse to take risks. Early on in his innings, he can be a little vulnerable to deliveries outside the off stump, but it is virtually impossible to make him play a drive,” Badrinath said, adding that Pujara is a “perfect role model for young cricketers”.
“Each batsman has limitations, but Pujara has shown how to overcome those and score all around the world. He knows how to keep his mind under a tight leash, something young players at the first-class level should learn,” Badrinath said.