Team India achieved a miraculous victory against Australia at the Gabba in Brisbane earlier this month to complete a 2-1 series victory over the hosts. It was the for the first time in 32 years, that Australia was beaten at their fortress and lost the series to India at home for the second consecutive time.
While a lot of youngsters stood up for the team on various occassions, Mr. Dependable Cheteshwar Pujara was a constant at the crease during the series.
Though he might not have scored runs like he did in 2018-19 series, Pujara looked at his best in his aim to stay in the middle as long as possible and he even put his body in the firing line. In an interview on a YouTube channel named Cricket Fables with Jamie Alter and Meha Bhardwaj, the Indian no.3 batsman revealed his plans during the second innings of the fourth Test at Gabba.
Pujara said on Cricket Fables, "I had a clear game plan, which was to make sure that we did not lose a wicket in the first session, or try and lose as as few wickets as possible in the first session, because that would give them an advantage moving into the second and third sessions."
"Fortunately, we just lost one wicket in the first session and my game plan was very clear: even if I don't get too many runs in the first session, I'll just stick around and try and get set and then try and accelerate in the second and third sessions," he added.
The pitch on day 5 wasn't particularly batting friendly as the variable bounce made it tough for the batsmen to judge the length of the deliveries arriving at them. It made defending even tougher, thus forcing Pujara to keep his bat out of the way out of fear of getting out.
"Getting hit on the head wasn't very painful because you have the protection of a helmet. Yes, it looks very scary when you're watching on TV and even as a batter you don't want to get hit on the helmet. Forget about the pain and the bruises but talking about that pitch, I feel it had variable bounce."
"Especially from one end, the ball wasn't rising much and then at times it was rising more than what I was expecting. It was becoming very difficult to defend those balls with the bat," the 33-year-old added.
Had Pujara put his bat on a ball that should have been higher than expected, the ball would have popped up towards a fielder. To rule out this possibility, the Saurashtra batsman showed his bravery and took body blows rather than getting out.
"There was the option of defending with the bat, but it wasn't the safe option because the ball could hit your glove and go to short leg, leg slip or gully or you can be out caught-behind. So I wanted to rule that option out. That is why I was taking blows on my body," Pujara said.
"A couple of blows were really painful. The one which hit me below the shoulder the second time was a little more painful, and the most painful one was the one where I got hit on my finger, because that was the second time that I got hit there.
Before the third Test match, during practice at Melbourne, I got hit on that finger so I was carrying that injury into the third and fourth Test matches. Well, I wouldn't call it an injury but yeah, there was a bit of bruising on that finger," he said.
(With inputs from Cricket Fables)
