Cheteshwar Pujara finds backing from Captain for his style of play

Cheteshwar Pujara’s stellar display of batting for the last few years has made him one of the vital cogs in the Indian test team. The right-handed batsman played a significant role in India’s maiden test series triumph down under.

He was the leading run-scorer in the series, amassing 521 runs in 4 innings at a stellar average of 74.43. He scored three hundreds in the series as his knocks were primarily the reason why India could seal the victory.

The 32-year old batsman, however, has found it hard to score runs in following tours. In the recently concluded New Zealand series, the Indian batsman hasn’t managed to pile up runs, having not managed to a single big innings in four innings. Add to that, questions have been raised over his low strike rate which has perhaps also affected batsman’s concentration playing at the other end.

Cheteshwar Pujara though finds it unfair to criticize his strike rate, saying that he has got complete backing from the skipper and the team management for his style of play and will continue to play this way.

“I don’t think there is too much talk (on the inside). In media, it is described differently but the team management has been backing me on this completely. There is no pressure from the captain, coach or anyone else,” Pujara was quoted as saying in Times of India.

“I just want to clarify that when it comes to strike-rate people start pointing towards team management’s take on it but there is no pressure on me at all. The team management understands my style of play and its importance.” He added.

“The question that was asked on social media (during Ranji final) was ‘why am I taking so long to score X number of runs’? Whether I pay attention to that, no, I don’t. My job is to make sure that the team wins at all times,”

In spite of all, Pujara’s test numbers should shut every critic. The Indian batsman has played the same way throughout his career and average 48.7 in the longest format of the game. In the 77 tests he has played so far, Pujara has scored 5840 runs with the highest score of 206*.