Having played a very crucial knock of 72 runs on Day 3 of the third Test at Trent Bridge against England, Cheteshwar Pujara has said that it is conditional awareness due to a stint in the County Championship earlier this year, that eventually helped him find back his mojo.
Despite his struggles in tough early summer conditions for Yorkshire, where he managed only 172 runs from 12 innings, and failure in the first two Tests at Edgbaston and Lord's, Pujara thinks the stint was very important for the betterment of his game.
“Playing county cricket did help me, I’ve learnt a lot. Although I didn't score too many runs in red-ball cricket, I was playing on challenging pitches. Ultimately, we just need to trust our technique. We just need to play the way we know.” he said at the end of Day 3.
Pujara also talked about the pressure around his place in the side coming into this innings and said, “There is always some pressure, especially when you haven’t scored too many runs. But I always felt that I was batting well. Especially in the nets, the way I was timing the ball I was very confident I was up for a big one. I'm really pleased to have scored those valuable 72 runs for the team. When you're away from home it's not about big hundreds but about having enough runs on the board collectively,”
On Day 3, India's wishlist included that they don't lose an early wicket in the process of ensuring they bat England out of contest. Pujara, along with Virat Kohli, who went on to score his 23rd Test hundred as well as his second of series, stamped their authority and helped their side reach a match-winning target of 521.
Pujara feels great having stretched a partnership like that and feels India can go all the way.
“You just have to respect the conditions and the way they bowled, We had our game plan and stuck to it. I can't reveal too much about it. We enjoyed that partnership in the first session. We won that session.” he said and added, “There's enough help for the fast bowlers, We saw in the first session today that some balls were climbing, some stayed low. If we bowl the way we did in the first innings, we'll have a good chance of bowling them out tomorrow.”
(Inputs from SPORTSTAR Live)
