Hello Sports Lovers,
I am sure cricket lovers amongst you would have had a great time this month as it was loaded with plenty of exciting cricket across the globe. The month started on a great note for the Indian cricket fans as the men's team won the final test in dramatic manner against England. A series loss could have raised several questions starting from the captaincy to the team selection & individual performances and what not. But for now a drawn series kind of subdued all sort of speculations & controversies. Australia & South Africa men's teams had yet another thrilling encounter after WTC final but this time in white ball cricket. Aussies came back triumphant in the T20I series continuing their dominating run in the shortest format of the game but lost the ODI series. Though they registered a record breaking win in the final ODI but the defending ODI world champions need to take a relook at their current ODI team combination post retirements of some of their stalwarts.
West Indies men's team continued their work on direct qualification for the ODI World cup 2027 by defeating Pakistan in a bilateral OD series after 34 years. Asian teams gearing up for stamping their supremacy as Asian giants in the Asia cup (T20 format) starting early next month. Pakistan, UAE & Afghanistan are currently involved in a tri-series as a much needed preparation for Asia cup whereas Bangladesh honing their T20 skills against Netherlands. Zimbabwe got the flavor of test cricket in a landmark year once again when they competed against New Zealand.
Franchise cricket witnessed yet another action packed month in the form of 100 ball competition The Hundred in the UK & CPL (Caribbean Premier League) in the West Indies. Indian women's cricket team gearing up for a home World cup reigniting their hope for a maiden world title. Selected team seems to have covered all the bases for a much anticipated World cup glory. Indian men's team selection for the Asia cup was also in news due to some surprising choices specially the exclusion of Shreyas Iyer.
Our monthly story though features yet another Indian legend who hung up his boots recently. He is one of such underrated stalwarts of Indian cricket who never grabbed media attention. But his departure from the field definitely created a gaping hole which will take some time to fill.
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| Pujara in English county cricket Image credit: Dave Morton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
Cheteshwar Pujara, the quintessential warrior of test cricket for more than a decade decided to retire from all forms of Indian cricket recently. His retirement is yet another addition to the coveted list of legends retiring this year including Kohli, Rohit, Ashwin that helped Indian team to dominate test cricket for a long enough time. It seems now in Indian cricket a proper farewell to those who served the country with lot of pride specially in the longest form of the game has become a thing of past. We have witnessed the departures of test legends like Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag in the past and the goodbyes from Ashwin, Rohit, Kohli earlier this year have only strengthened the idea that as a seasoned test cricketer you don't get that recognition anymore specially in a world dominated by T20 cricket. In fact if we look at a range of last 5-8 years, there has been hardly any proper farewell to any outgoing cricketer. That's sad. Whether a congested schedule is one of the reasons behind that is a matter of debate.
In case of Pujara few factors would have worked behind this decision. He has been out of the Indian team for a couple of years now. Despite a decent show in domestic cricket & consistent performances at the English county circuit he couldn't get his place back in the team. Surprisingly he was not selected even for the recently concluded England tour where the team was lacking batting depth post retirements of Rohit & Kohli. Even after the conclusion of the series it was clearly visible that India is still searching for that Mr. Dependable at no.3 which was proudly occupied by Pujara for a majority part of his career.
Pujara has been a consistent performer for India at no.3 post retirement of Rahul Dravid. He might not have the flamboyance of Kohli or Rishabh Pant but what he possessed all these years was a firm determination of making his country proud every time he holds a bat in his hand. We fondly recall the memories of India's hard fought victory in the 2020-21 series against Australia where Pujara took innumerable blows on his body to save the Sydney test match apart from playing some crucial knocks throughout the series. But throughout his career he has carried that responsibility for his team. He has been instrumental in both the away test series wins against Australia. He has always performed in difficult conditions specially away from home and paved the way for the middle order to score big.
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| Pujara in his early days with team India Image credit: NAPARAZZI, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Despite never having any title he was always a leader of the batting group. Again talking about that series against Australia where India lost Kohli after the 1st match and toiled hard to come out of the demons of 37 all out, he along with stand in captain Rahane took the responsibility of guiding a young team to a historic series win. Another interesting aspect of his international career was he being marked as a test cricketer only though he has a stellar record in List A cricket at the domestic level averaging 57. He played only 5 ODIs for India which is not enough at all to judge a player's potential. Could he not been given few more chances in white ball cricket to cement his place in the team? There were players who were given a long rope despite continuous failures and here was a guy who despite showing his worth as a technically solid batter at the highest level could not fetch a few more opportunities.
Best part about him was that he never tried to go with the current trend and tweak his batting style as per the demands of T20 cricket. Lot of players have tried that and faced the consequences. But Pujara was very clear on what he wanted to do. Lot of times he was criticized for his slow batting even in test cricket specially where the likes of Kohli, Pant or Rohit were scoring at a much rapid rate. But not to forget that it was his solidity at one end gave the freedom to the rest of the batters to play their natural games. That criticism really seemed to be unfair on a player of Pujara's quality who was prioritizing team's needs rather than focusing on individual milestones.
It was sad that a player who represented his country in 100+ test matches which is a rarity could not get the required support from the team management when he went through a rough patch. In modern day cricket it is nearly impossible for any cricketer to play for a longer period without having a dip in their performance. With so much technology being available these days it's not that difficult for the opposition team to find shortcomings in a player's technique & capitalize on that. During such periods what the player needs is a solid backing from his captain & team management. Few low scores and this modern day stalwart found himself out of the team. The wait prolonged for him despite some encouraging performances with a focus on making a comeback. Is this how the test specialists are going to be treated despite the stakeholders' claims of doing everything to save test cricket?
It was inevitable that Pujara was not getting any younger and sooner or later he would have retired. But what was expected from the board was to show little more respect to the ones who gave their everything for the country. Such players should not become the victims of internal politics or biased selection methods. In a country with a population of 1.5 billion every player who gets an opportunity to represent the Indian cricket team should be considered as special and treated fairly. With the new generation taking the charge now and test cricket trying to save its existence amidst the ever growing popularity of T20 cricket it will be interesting to see how many test specialists of Pujara's calibre come through and how we treat them.
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