Indian cricketer in focus: Cheteshwar Pujara - Understated excellence

When opportunity meets preparation, champions are made.

Just ask Cheteshwar Pujara. Having scored 1180 runs at an average of 65.55 that includes 4 centuries, 3 half centuries and 2 double centuries in 13 Tests, this man was born to shine, wasn’t he? Earmarked for greatness as it were.

No, not really. They said his runs were easy runs, scored against bowlers as incisive as a baby that had not yet begun teething, and on tracks that put some of the roads in India to shame. He was supposed to be, at best, an almost player; a domestic stalwart but international non-entity.

He spend five years grinding it out in domestic cricket as he saw flashier players jump ahead of him in the queue for a batting berth. He just kept batting. Finally, his chance came. He scored a composed 72 on Test debut against Australia, shepherding a tight chase. It seemed that all his years of hard toil were about to pay dividends. And then he got injured. He missed a year. They said he couldn’t make a comeback. They said that he had lost a step, that he was finished. But he kept on batting. On and on and on.

The comeback trail then. The man he was replacing had the small matter of 13,288 Test runs and 36 Test centuries to his name. The team he was slotting into had lost 8 successive overseas Tests. Add to that the notoriously fickle public and media, the host of hungry young batsmen snapping at his heels and the pressure of a comeback, and he could be forgiven for being just a bit nervous. If he was, it didn’t show. He passed 50, then 100, then 150. He was eventually dismissed for 159, but he looked every bit the player they said he couldn’t be.

His concentration has been talked up; he seems to enjoy a reputation most orange juice manufacturers would kill for. A lot was said about his discretion too. However, that has led to a common misconception – that he is overly cautious. His batting does not have a je ne sais quoi about it; he lacks the panache and pizazz of an Amla, Pietersen or Clarke. His technique is good enough, but it’s not quite textbook.

You remember his innings, but you would be hard-pressed to remember a shot that made you gasp. Fair enough. His batting is more than the individual shots he plays, it’s more than the sum total of its parts, it’s the entire process that matters. It’s not about the purity of technique, but the soundness of it. He was the only player on either side to master the treacherous Kotla wicket in the 4th Test of the home series against Australia. By the end of it, he looked like he was batting on another surface.