Pujara looks back at Australia tour; says batting on Gabba pitch wasn't toughest

India’s number three in Tests, Cheteshwar Pujara played 928 balls across the four-match series against Australia and at the end of the series, he was left bruised, hurt and was seen in a lot of pain on the final day of the series. But he says the period played in Brisbane when he was struck as many as 11 times was not the toughest he faced in his career. He said that feeling the pain after getting blows on the body was obvious, but it was not the most challenging innings he had to face.

“Maybe in terms of blows, yes. But I have played many tough spells in my career. Getting hit on the body… when you look at it, I may be in pain, but that is not the toughest thing you face as a batsman. I feel when you face swing bowling or when the ball is seaming, there is a lot of movement in the air if you can survive that spell, that is more challenging than getting hit on the body,” Pujara said to Hindustan Times in an interview.

“It can be painful at times. If the pitch is such that you are getting hit again and again, it doesn’t help. That can be disturbing at times. That is where you need to be strong mentally, and I wanted to make sure that I am tough. I was not getting disturbed by getting hit on the body.”

However, Pujara does not rule out the difficulty he had to overcome while battling the Australian pace attack on the fifth-day pitch at the Gabba. He said that he had only four fingers functional after taking multiple blows on his thumb.

‘Also, with the finger injury, it wasn’t easy for me to bat. I was in some pain. This happened during one of the practice sessions in Melbourne. When I was batting in Sydney and Brisbane, it wasn’t easy to grip the bat properly. When I got hit again at Brisbane, there was more pain. I had to grip the bat with four fingers. It wasn’t natural. Things still worked out pretty well,” Pujara added.

Pujara was dismissed five times to the number bowler on the ICC Rankings for the bowlers in tests—Pat Cummins, but these figures do not matter to Pujara as long as he could manage to provide India the platform to kick on. Pujara conceded that Cummins outplayed him on numerous occasions by bowling unplayable deliveries and that he should have tackled him better, but that does not take away the herculean efforts he put in against the fiery pace attack of Australia.

“Not much. Yes, with some dismissals, I felt that I could have tackled him a little better. But in other dismissals, like in Sydney where the ball kicked off the back of a length and hit my gloves, even if I was batting on a hundred, I would have still got out. Some balls are such that you can’t control, and as a batsman, you should be lucky to survive. Cummins is ranked the No 1 Test bowler, and you have to give him credit. If you get out, you have to accept it and move on,” Pujara added.

“Yes, on paper it might appear that Cummins has got me out a number of times. But, for me it doesn’t matter a lot if the team is winning, or if I am performing my job. If you look at the Sydney Test match, I got runs and then got out. So, I didn’t think that I was losing the battle at all. Yes, initially when I didn’t have enough runs, it wasn’t easy. I was facing the most intense spells, walking in at No 3. That’s when he is the most dangerous with the new ball. I probably faced some of his best spells and managed to play through them without getting out. When I got out on 50 or 60, I had faced many balls. It wasn’t that I was walking in and getting out. I would take the positive in being able to disturb his rhythm.”

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Pujara had an instrumental role in the last series India won in Australia and hence Australia came better prepared against him in this series. Pat Cummins had made his intentions clear that although Pujara will be able to bat for long hours, his run-scoring methods will be choked and ultimately it affected Pujara’s run-scoring as the right-hander scored three slowest fifties of his career.

Pujara said that Cummins had done the homework to challenge him and he could not get to terms with the discipline shown by the Australian attack in the early part of the series.

“In 2018-19 too, he was their top bowler. This time they had done some homework on my batting. He had a game plan, and with some of his deliveries, the execution was very good. I took some time to break that game plan but was able to do that later. It didn’t come in the first two matches, but it did come in the last two. To make my own game plan, I had to wait a bit longer, which happens because I was playing Test matches after a long time,” Pujara added.

India are set to take on England in their home conditions and although the confidence in the Indian camp will be on the higher side after a historic triumph down under, Pujaa alerted his teammates against complacency and said that the English team can’t be taken lightly.

“We will have the home advantage, but England is a good side, and we can’t take things lightly at all. They have done well in Sri Lanka in the recent series. It will be a good challenge to have at home. All of us looking forward to this, because we are carrying the confidence of an away series win. Our morale is quite high. I am very confident of the side we have, and if we play to potential, we will be able to do quite well.”

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