Cheteshwar Pujara might be considered a direct fit into the big shoes of Rahul Dravid but the current Indian Test No.3 amusingly feels shy being compared to his legendary predecessor, having always considered Dravid an inspiration and mentor to learn from throughout his career. 

Pujara opened up on the comparisons with the nation's former captain and lessons learnt from Indian cricket's yet most dependable asset. 

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"It is a big honour for me but it's not the right comparison because I still have a lot of things to achieve in my life and someone like Rahul Bhai who has played all the formats, scored more than 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs, he's played T20 format as well," Pujara told India Today. 

"So I still have a lot of achieving and I'm still learning. I'm at an age where I have taken a lot of guidance from him, luckily he's always available."

Pujara mentioned how big a help Dravid was to him when he was hoping for a swift transition towards Test cricket on debut in 2010 after dominating bowling attacks in the Ranji Trophy. 

"I first met him at a Ranji game and he was back then captaining the Indian team," the 32-year-old said. "They had visited Rajkot, when I first spoke to him he was very approachable. At that time I hadn't played any international matches. How to transition from Ranji to the international level, that was my first conversation with him. When I got into the team I spoke to him about what should I do, he had many thoughts on how to approach international cricket."

Dravid became the coach of the India U-19 & A sides less than three years after his retirement before taking over as the NCA director of cricket.

"After that, once he retired and mentoring young kids, he was coach of India A team and I was going through a tough time, he gave me many advices. He's such a positive person," Pujara said. "He told me that you have that talent, you need to believe in yourself, your opportunities will come and ultimately it did come."

"Also when we are talking about the technical aspect of this game, he knows what he's talking about. He has told me not to make a lot of changes in my game, I just have to fine-tune a few things."

(Inputs from India Today)