Galle, July 31
The contribution of former Saurashtra cricketer Arvind Pujara in shaping the career of his son, Cheteshwar, is well documented. As Pujara gears up to play his 50th Test, he shares that his “worst critic” was no longer as strict as he used to be. “My father has always been my worst critic. At times, he has been very critical but now he’s not that strict,” said Pujara.
In 49 Tests, Pujara has scored 3966 runs, averaging 52.18, and 12 hundreds. The last of his centuries came in the Galle Test that India won by 304 runs. “It has been a wonderful journey so far. Playing the 50th Test match will be a proud moment for me, and I will be keen to score some runs in this Test,” said Pujara.
Pujara’s international career had been a stop-start one until 2015, mainly due to recurring injuries. “It was the most challenging time of my career. You lose your rhythm and concentration when you get injured. But I worked hard on my fitness, and came out of that phase,” he said.
Pujara termed his 145 against Sri Lanka two years back a career-defining knock. Following that knock, he has been very consistent. “When I got a hundred in Sri Lanka in 2015, everything changed. After that I’ve scored some (big) runs even in domestic cricket. And when you start scoring big runs, you gain a lot of confidence. I think playing domestic cricket also helped me,” said Pujara.
There was a time when he struggled to convert starts. It was a tricky period as it could get frustrating, and the batsman in question could start making unnecessary changes in his technique and approach. Pujara was lucky that Rahul Dravid stepped in and assured him that all was well with his technique.
“There was nothing wrong with my technique because Rahul Dravid told me I should continue to play the way I had been playing. I just trusted my game, worked hard on it and was just one innings away (from getting a big score),” said Pujara.
Having shared the dressing room with legends like Sachin Tendulkar and Dravid, Pujara said one could never stop being a student of the game. “From the legends one thing I learnt was that they always worked hard on their game. They had already scored more than 10,000 runs but they still worked hard, always trying to improve.
“They were all grounded and supported young players. Their work ethic, determination and pride in representing the country was always there,” said Pujara.