ENG vs IND 2018: Pujara banking on prior experience of playing in England for a successful series

The Test series starts from August .

Cheteshwar Pujara. (Getty)

Cheteshwar Pujara will be one of the key batsmen in the Indian batting line up who will need to perform as and when the Test series between England and India starts. 

In an exclusive interview with ESPN Cricinfo, Pujara opened up on his preparations and looks back on his previous tour to England. "I have played enough cricket in England, especially county cricket," said Pujara. "The good thing for me is, I have enough experience of playing in the 2014 series, so those conditions are familiar to me."

"When it comes to my batting or my position, I don't need to fear anyone else or anything. I have proved that I am worthy enough to be part of the Indian team,"said Pujara.

Regarding finding a place in the Indian playing XI Pujara sounded very confident. "And I have performed enough in 2017-18. I obviously deserve my place. I have offered enough to the team. My team-mates and team management have acknowledged that, so there is no pressure. I just need to focus on what I need to do."

"When I play Test cricket I don't think I need to compete with players who play in other formats, because this format is completely different. Whoever scores runs in ODIs, there is no guarantee that they will score runs in Test cricket. There is no comparison or competition in that way."

Pujara furthered said that his role in the team has been clearly specified by the management and he has adjusted to that. "I can't be very specific about what my role is because there are strategies involved, but I have got clear guidelines about what I need to do. And in Test cricket it is not like ODIs, where you need to have different strategies all the time. Simply put, I just need to score runs. Whatever else I have to do, I have been told clearly and I know my role," Pujara said.

"It is not about scoring big hundreds. I would obviously love to score as many runs as possible, but if you look at the average score in England, it is not like India, where you can get three or four centuries in a five-Test series. [In England] even the top players have about two centuries and few fifties. So the average score is different from when you play in Australia, South Africa, and even in India" said Pujara to conclude his interaction. 

(Inputs from India Today)

 
 

By Anshuman Roy - 27 Jul, 2018

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