Cheteshwar Pujara, the silent star: Indian cricket's underrated and misunderstood winner

Pujara was left out of the West Indies tour and was branded as out of step by those talking about Indian cricket.

 Congratulations Cheteshwar Pujara on his 100th Test match at the Arunjaitley Cricket Ground in New Delhi. (shot by Praveen Khanna)

Back in the country's best youth camp today, Cheteshwar Pujara, as he was and still is, has been asked many times in the past to tweak his batting basics. It has nothing to do with your success rate. That day, Pujala was reprimanded for an inappropriate catch. A famous Mumbai coach told him, "You're holding the bat too low, put your hands up."

🏏 ❤️ pic.twitter.com/TubsOu3Fah

— Cheteshwar Pujara (@cheteshwar1) June 24, 2023

That night, the restless teenager, who has made a name for himself on the court with hundreds of players, calls his father, his lifelong coach. Pujara Sr., who played smartly, advised his son to pick up the bat as told by the coach, but only if he was there. Small crises were averted, but only temporarily.  

It would be a recurring theme in over 100 games of Pujara's Test career. Under strict discipline, he remains an outsider, unwilling to accept an old but effective cricketer. That match in Bombay was the first of his many attempts to rewrite cricket, to force him to be like everyone else, to make him a different person than he was. 

After the Duleep Trophy, he moved to Bangalore and thus skipped the West Indies trip, but still faced his share of hardships. Unblemished by the noise of the Ashes and the adventure of New England's Test in Australia, Bogala's old-fashioned approach has been termed outdated by Indian cricket's decision-makers. Are the Indian exams over? And you leave in the sunset without singing or partying? Although this has not been officially confirmed, it is understood that the decision makers do not support the way he hits the ball.

 

Pujara is known to be too much of a gentleman to call voters a bunch of pranksters or to voice his concerns in public. Don't worry about the backlash on social media either. It will be organic, unplanned and therefore ephemeral and fragile. Testers aren't known for supporting paid influencers, nor do they command relentless bot armies to push agendas or shape narratives. Instead, he tweeted a video of practicing straw blows, with the first photo of him arming himself.

It helps that the voters representing the transition include two young talents: Yashasvi Jaiswal and Raturaj Gaikwad. Fans have been hearing praises from the two IPL champions for almost two months and their ears are still ringing till today. The world's biggest cricketing voices have given paid speeches across the league, hailing them again and again as the next big thing.

Again, selectors rely on IPL matches to justify Test selections, and let's not forget that this is still a domestic competition where every team has at least two midfielders in the field. It's an old trick used to fool game fans, and it's enough these days. IPL is known to have the ability to brainwash and may even pass from Pujara to Jaiswal. Not a rant against the dreaded youngster, but an understanding of the logic behind closing the door on the team's best Test performance. This is to answer the question "Why Pujara?". » unfair treatment For Pujara, it has little to do with the game. In the last WTC tournament, he scored 928 runs, just four behind India's top-scoring Virat Kohli. They also had similar strike rates, in the early 0s. Kohli recently ended a three-year drought at the Test Center that was as bad as Pujara's, if not worse.