Veteran Indian batter Cheteshwar Pujara has revealed what motivated him to change his batting strategy to get success in the white-ball format, as he was already a good batter in Test cricket.
Pujara further revealed that when CSK didn’t give him a single game in the IPL 2021, it motivated him to do something with his batting, and he worked on it, and everyone saw the difference in the Royal London Cup 2022 in England.
The right-hander stunned the world with his completely different batting in the Royal London Cup, where he is the second highest run scorer with 624 runs at an average of 89.14. Representing Sussex, Pujara hit three hundreds and a fifty in the 50-over tournament. He has also so far amassed 1094 runs in the County Championship Division Two for Sussex.
Cheteshwar Pujara said on 'The Cricket Podcast': “This is a different side of my game for sure. There is no doubt about it. Pitches were good, slightly flat but even those surfaces, you need to have that intent of scoring at a higher strike-rate. This is something which I have always worked on.”
He continued, “I was part of CSK a year before last and when I didn't play any games and saw the guys prepare, I told myself that if I want to play the shorter format. I always used to put a big prize on my wicket but I the shorter formats, you still want to play your shots in your game.”
Pujara further revealed he worked on his batting with Sussex’s batting coach Grant Flower and now everything is going smooth. He said, “I worked on it before the Royal London One-Day Cup. I went with Grant and spoke to him that there are some shots which I want to work. When we were training, he told me that I am executing those really well and that gave me confidence.”
He concluded, “I thought that if I could keep working on some of the lofted shots which could help me and if I can execute those, I could be successful even in shorter formats.”
