Cheteshwar's castle of glass: Breaking down Pujara's technical struggles
The "walls" - for lack of a better word - of Indian sports have been firmly in the spotlight over the last few weeks.
Rahul Dravid oversaw his first assignment as head coach of the senior men's cricket team. P.R. Sreejesh led the senior men's hockey team to a historic Olympic bronze, while his women's counterpart Savita Punia was just as good despite a heartbreaking loss at the same stage.
But one of India's strongest bulwarks over the last decade is showing disturbing fault lines up in England. Cheteshwar Pujara, who hasn't scored an international century in 30 months, is no longer the formidable No. 3 he once was.
Pujara has averaged 25.28 since the start of 2020, with only five 50-plus scores and a dismissal every 84 balls. Among the players who have faced more than 1,000 balls in this period, he averages the least. Concerningly, for a man who's been touted as a necessity away from home, he averages only 24.10 over his last 10 overseas Tests.
Pujara's struggles have been masked by those of Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane, but the resolute batsman is slowly having questions asked of him. With younger players like Shubman Gill, Mayank Agarwal, Hanuma Vihari and Suryakumar Yadav waiting in the wings, the 33-year-old is running out of time to prove his worth to the red-ball side.
What's going wrong with Cheteshwar Pujara? Here, we analyze why he's going through a rough patch and illustrate why it's probably impossible for him to succeed in England without making drastic technical adjustments.
Confined to the crease and blocked by the bottom hand: Pujara's age-old technique is failing him
Cheteshwar Pujara is one of the most successful Test batsmen of all time, but his technique isn't straight out of the batting manual. Grit and resolve are the pillars upon which he has built his run-scoring, with a slightly unconvenential style that falls short in certain environments.
To start with, Pujara has always been heavily bottom-handed, with his right glove almost adjacent to the splice of his bat. This trait of his makes him an exceptional exponent of the cut and capable of finding even the most miniscule gaps while coming down the track to the spinners, but it also leaves him vulnerable to anything full and straight.
When Pujara copped a few blows on the bottom hand in the historic Gabba Test, he admitted that he found it difficult to grip the bat afterwards. The way he manouvers the ball on the drive and the flick is almost identical to an extremely unorthodox player in MS Dhoni, who incidentally has had more success against James Anderson than any other Indian batsman.
So if Dhoni, who is also bottom-handed and was able to counter Anderson to a certain extent, why can't Cheteshwar Pujara?
Well, a couple of curious technical flaws mean that England's leading Test wicket-taker has sent Pujara back to the pavilion a whopping eight times. Other similar bowlers who like to plug away in the channel, such as Pat Cummins (7), Josh Hazlewood (6), Trent Boult (5) and Stuart Broad (4), have also had the wood over Pujara.
The hallmark of Dhoni's inimitable technique against pacers in swinging conditions was the way he used to charge down the track to get closer to the pitch of the ball and negate the sideways movement. He may not have looked classy while doing it, but it was probably the only thing keeping him from sureshot failures.
Pujara, a player who's known for his proactivity against the spinners, is oddly stationary when facing quicker bowlers. With minimal footwork, he often finds himself confined to the crease, relying on his seemingly airtight, compact defense to grind down the bowlers. And lately, over the last couple of years at least, Pujara has shown almost no intent to score runs.
In his first four years of Test cricket, his dot-ball percentages were 72.5, 85.7, 74.1 and 70.8 respectively. The last four years, however, paint a different, gloomy picture - 85.2, 85.2, 76.7 and 80.8. Clearly, Pujara isn't rotating strike as often as he should be, probably because of his propensity to get sucked into a blockfest.
Moreover, Pujara hasn't been able to present the full face of the bat to balls angled into his body. He has never been one to score most of his runs in the 'V', but no defensive technique can succeed without every possible inch of the bat welcoming the moving ball.
Pujara's angled bat has made him susceptible to seam movement - in both directions - as well as bounce. Tall bowlers like Kyle Jamieson, Ollie Robinson and Hazlewood have sent down good balls that have seemed unplayable because of the batsman's tilted willow.
There are no two ways about it. Cheteshwar Pujara must commit on the front foot, look to find the gaps even while defending, and ensure that he presents the full face to every ball in his eyeline.
Cheteshwar Pujara's Test career hangs in the balance
The odds are stacked against Cheteshwar Pujara as we head into the second innings and the upcoming four Tests. He averages 26.35 in England, 20 in New Zealand and 31.62 in South Africa - the three countries that produce the most lateral movement.
You could even go as far as to say that Pujara's spot in the Indian Test team is on the line. But the veteran batsman has made a career out of performing with his back against the wall. Even as recently as the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, he showed why he's invaluable to this Indian Test team.
The England Tests will be a massive challenge for Pujara, whose technique simply isn't tailored to the conditions. His once-impenetrable fortress has become a castle of glass that could shatter at any instant. Can he pull off another Houdini act and set up a trademark barricade to counter the English charge?