Pujara follows Kohli, conquers England
Cheteshwar Pujara scored his fifteenth Test hundred on Friday at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton in onerous circumstances which led all of us to sit up and take notice, supporters and doubters alike. The question was not about whether he had the ability to score gritty knocks; it was more along the lines of whether he could do it in difficult conditions (read overseas).
Pujara scored a century away from home in December 2013 in South Africa; his next came almost two years later opening the batting and carrying his bat through the innings at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo. He enjoyed a sticky spell before redeeming himself against the visiting English and Australians and leaping to star like heights in the back-to-back series against Sri Lanka.
However, for Pujara, the doubts had always been there. For a man thought to be the pivot around which India's batting would have revolved this English summer, he was left out of the playing XI at Edgbaston. He had prepared extensively for this tour, even having spent a couple of months playing county cricket for Yorkshire, getting used to the tough conditions. But he was preferred to KL Rahul at number three at Edgbaston; status reconfirmed as being a flat-track bully. The stats do not lie - Pujara had scored only three overseas Test centuries in his career before Friday and two of them had come against Lanka in their own territory. So, in a career which has seen 23 Test matches played outside Asia, a return of one hundred seems disturbing.
Pujara the man remains incongruous in a dressing room full of men sporting tattoos, gelled hair and designer wear. He seems out of place in a generation of SnapChat and Instagram. He remains shy and quiet.
Pujara the batsman has many flaws but the way he batted on Friday, the way he left balls alone, and the way he played shots warmed even the most cynical heart. He was on 78 when Ishant Sharma walked in, and an hour or so later, when Jasprit Bumrah got out, Pujara was unbeaten on 132 - having added exactly another 78 with the number ten and number eleven of India.
Expectedly, he made bulk of the scoring, adding 54 for himself. He took on the English pacers, played shots in the air and watched his more illustrious teammates fall, all seemingly out of character, but when India needed it most, Pujara put his hand up.
Pujara added 92 runs with Virat Kohli - the latter having turned a page and buried the ghosts of 2014, but apart from the skipper, he found precious little support from any of his teammates - gelled hair or not.
Pujara the man merged with Pujara the batsman on a quiet Friday evening in Southampton- the result being a mixture of guts, grit and conviction. He is admired by people who love watching Test cricket, because he symbolises Test cricket himself- quiet, tough and not always easy on the eye.
No matter how many more overseas hundreds Pujara goes on to score, he will rank this one as his best purely in terms of where the series was and the match was poised, and also because everyone around Indian cricket thought that he couldn’t do it.
It wasn’t just Virat Kohli. Cheteshwar Pujara, too, had exorcised his demons.