India vs Australia, 3rd Test Day 2: Block-buster knock from Cheteshwar Pujara

Despite this body of work, he’s not given due credit. It’s not difficult to understand the reason, since this has been the Year of Virat Kohli. The golden summer of Kohli has submerged Pujara’s silvery spring. On several counts, he matches Kohli — least of all the runs scored in winning causes outside Asia this year. Kohli’s tally is 332 and Pujara’s 331. He’s not too far behind in terms of the balls faced (2174 and 2429) though the brutally consistent Kohli has scored considerably more runs than him (847 and 1322). Since his debut, only Azhar Ali has faced more deliveries. In 2018, he is the only batsman to face over 4000 balls in Test cricket, an average of 116 balls per innings.

It captures a story, though not paints a complete picture. In Pujara’s case what the numbers conceal is that he is the man unbothered to score dirty runs. He is unstained by the changing perceptions of batting and brave enough to stand by his own game.

Providing balance to ballast

He provides balance to the ballast. The stability he provides is of utmost important to a team whose openers are struggling, there is a question at No 6, the wicketkeeper is callow and the lower-order is flimsy. He also lets Kohli pursue his brand of aggressive batting unmindful of how his team would crumble if he gets out early. It’s a telling irony that the very man whose methods are different from the skipper’s philosophy has contributed the most to the team’s success this year.

All that trash-talk of him lacking the intent to score quick runs now seems churlish, and even though the skipper still gets wowed by free-scoring batsman — Rohit Sharma’s persistence a case in point — he has realised and acknowledged the importance and the understated genius of Pujara. The way Kohli batted in Perth as well as Melbourne was an acceptance of the Pujara school of batting.

The genius of Pujara is not about playing strokes or knocking the daylights out of the bowlers, but in making the rivals believe that when in his bubble, he is impenetrable. At MCG on Thursday, the Aussie bowlers hit the wall. They would pound the ball as hard and as fast as they could, only to see Pujara getting behind the line of the ball and tapping it down. They tried everything at him, tease him outside the off-stump, intimidate him with short-ball, tempt him with full-length deliveries. But Pujara didn’t waver until a grubber trimmed his stumps.

It was a crawl even by his standards, but equally a masterclass in grinding runs on a turgid surface. His patience and doggedness draining the bowlers in the searing heat.

In that vein, he is the worthy scion to the Boycotts of the world, but if he looks around there could be few. While his team-mates have been hammering the ball into the stratosphere in the T20 blast, Pujara have been stewing away without an audience, blocking, blocking and blocking again. If any, he has reiterated the worth of blockers. At a time and age when they’re a precious but dwindling commodity. All great team had such men — Desmond Haynes played the foil to the belligerence Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards, Justin Langer counter-balanced the robustness of Matthew Hayden and Co. England, at their best this century, had Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook, India had Rahul Dravid and Pakistan Younis Khan.

But it’s a dying art — the art of risk-averse, slow batting, called into service most during defiant rearguard actions to stave off defeat. Yet here was a batsman using the approach to lay a siege rather than repel one. It doesn’t always looks beautiful, sometimes it can be torturous, but in the end they win you games.

Thrice he got struck on his finger, several times the ball flew past his chest, on few other occasions he was beaten. But Pujara wouldn’t flinch. It doesn’t bother him as long as he’s there in the middle. “My job is to score runs, and I will keep scoring runs, whether it is home or away. Sometimes you do get criticised and you just have to accept it. But if you keep scoring runs and if India keeps winning, ultimately everybody is happy,” he says. Except for the hapless bowlers who spent the day running into the stone wall.