GALLE: Sri Lankan cricket venues are proving to be ‘happy hunting grounds’ for quite a few Indian players. After off-spinner Ravichandra Ashwin reached the 50-Test landmark in Galle, a venue where he took 10 wickets to start a dream run for him back in August 2015, it is batsman Cheteshwar Pujara’s turn to play his 50th Test at a ground which saw a change in his sagging fortunes too.
When Pujara came to the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) two years back, he had just one game to prove his worth after losing his place in the side following average performances on away tours to England and Australia. In the absence of his solidity at No 3, India were looking for solutions in Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane, who clearly looked more comfortable down the order.
To make things difficult for him, Pujara was asked to open as both the regular openers, Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan were injured. For the ‘Test specialist,’ this was a lifeline he desperately needed, and he grabbed it. Putting his head down on a seaming wicket, the run-machine from Saurashtra slammed a match-winning, unbeaten 145 which clinched the third Test and the series on that tour.
“When I got a hundred in Sri Lanka, in 2015, everything changed. After that, I’ve scored heavily even in domestic cricket. When you start playing domestic cricket and start scoring big runs, you gain a lot of confidence,” he said, looking excited at the prospect of crossing another milestone in what’s been a glittering career for him.
It was early in his career that Pujara got a taste of what Test cricket was about. During his first overseas trip, to South Africa in 2010-11, all he managed on the bouncy wickets of Durban and Cape Town against the likes of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel was 19, 10 & 2.
“I told myself that I have to work hard on my game, especially if I want to play at the international level against world-class bowlers in different conditions. After that I really worked hard on my game, starting in 2011 and I got results in 2012 and 2013. I was looking at players like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Paaji.All of them got runs on that tour, and I was just trying to notice what are the things they are trying to do. I had a chat with them, and I implemented a few things in the nets, which helped me later on,” Pujara recalled.
On his next trip there, Pujara slammed a classy 153 at Johannesburg and 70 at Durban. The attack, the wickets, all were the same. Just that the batsman had learnt his lessons well.
The other tough phase for Pujara was when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) of both his knees while playing for Kolkata Knight Riders in a practice match ahead of IPL 2 in South Africa in 2009. He even suffered an injury in 2011 while playing for RCB.
“That was one of the most challenging times in my career. I was out for six months.I wasn’t able to play cricket for a year, which was really tough for me. The reason was, once you get injured you need to start scoring runs again, you need to get that rhythm again as your concentration goes down. That was the toughest part of my career, but now I have come out of it and am working really hard on my fitness so that I don’t pick up injuries anymore. Again, you can’t guarantee anything but as long as you work hard on your fitness, the chances of getting injured are less,” Pujara said.
His father-cum-coach Arvind Pujara remains Pujara’s ‘strongest’ critic since ‘Chintu’ started playing cricket at the age of eight. “At times, he’s been very critical about my batting but now we have come to an understanding where we always speak and arrive to a conclusion. And he is not very strict anymore,” Pujara said.