Cheteshwar Pujara’s father Arvind, who is also his coach, said that the batter has got his flow back. He believes that lack of match practice due to COVID-19 pandemic was the reason behind his inconsistency. 

Pujara found himself out of the Indian team after his poor performances with the bat of late. He last scored a ton during Border Gavaskar Trophy 2018-19 in SCG Test against Australia. Since then, he looked off the colours and averaged less than 25 in the last few games for India. 

Pujara’s underwhelming outings in South Africa series made selectors take a harsh call and drop him from the side for the home Test series against Sri Lanka. 

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However, he has been in great touch in the ongoing County Championship. Pujara has scored over 500 runs in just 3 innings with the help of the two double centuries and a ton. He is knocking on the doors of selectors yet again with his performances and making his case strong for the one-off Test against England in July.

Speaking to PTI, Arvind Pujara said that lack of match practice was the reason behind Cheteshwar’s inconsistency for the past few seasons, and playing against the likes of England and Australia wasn’t easy for him as they don’t give loose balls. 

“I feel the lack of game time was a big reason why he could not be consistent over the past three seasons. When you play the likes of Australia and England, you have to be on the top of your game as you don't get loose balls that you may get at the domestic level,” Arvind Pujara said. 

Arvind said that there were not enough games for Pujara to make him ready for the big battles. He said that the right-hander is now back in his game and will keep scoring runs consistently 

"There were not enough games for him to play at the domestic level to be ready for bigger battles. That I feel impacted his consistency at the highest level. Now that he is getting to play regularly, you can see the consistency is back in his game,” he said. 

Pujara has played 95 Tests for India and has scored 6713 runs at an average of 43.9 to go with 18 hundreds and 32 half-centuries. 

(PTI Inputs)