While there is no doubting his ability to play long innings and play the anchor role, Cheteshwar Pujara needs to seriously work on his batting approach. Having lost the first day of the WTC final due to rain and batting first India needed quick runs to put kiwis under pressure.
But Pujara it seems has absolutely ZERO Match sense . 8 runs off 54 balls is simply ridiculous batting . When will he ever learn to rotate? .
His inability or no desire whatsoever to score runs puts pressure on other batsmen to score runs . And this is hurting team India’s bid to set a competitive target.
If India wants to fare well in the five- match Test series against England, Virat and Shastri must ask whether Pujara will he score runs or not? . If not drop him and play K L Rahul or Hanuma Vihari instead. At-least there will be some fluency and run rate will improve. Pujara with his defensive approach has often made a mess of the team’s run rate.
A Southampton , it took 36 balls for Pujara to get off the mark forcing critics of the game to shake their heads in disbelief at the defensive approach of his game.
South African speedster Dale Steyn, who is closely following the ongoing Test Championship final between India and New Zealand has opined that the premier batsman should have rotated strike a bit more in the 1st innings. “You want to see somebody like Pujara. Now he faced 50 balls and we know that this is kind of player that he is. But I’m sure if he looked back and looked at the sample of video analysis, he would find that there are deliveries there where he could have created the opportunity to maybe rotate a little bit more strike,” Steyn was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
