Team India’s World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 cycle kicked off with the two-match Test series against the West Indies last month.

When the BCCI selection committee announced India’s squad for the West Indies Test series, there was a notable omission.

Veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara was left out of the red-ball side. His exclusion came after failure in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier this year and the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023 final against Australia.

Almost a month later, Pujara has reacted to his snub, saying it was a frustrating experience and left him with self doubt and a bruised ego.

“There have been ups and downs in the last few years. It tests you as a player because having played, say more than 90 Test matches, I still had to prove myself. I still had to prove that I belonged there. It’s a different type of challenge,” Pujara told The Final Word podcast.

“Sometimes you do get frustrated, even if you have to prove yourself after 90 Tests and five-six thousand, whatever number of runs I had scored. It’s not easy. Sometimes it plays around with your ego. There are still doubts — are you good enough.

“If you have to prove yourself again and again, (you wonder) whether it is worth it,” added Pujara, who is currently plying his trade in English County cricket for Sussex.

Pujara was India’s second highest run-getter in the 2021-23 WTC cycle with 928 runs from 17 Tests, only four runs behind top-placed Virat Kohli.

“I know that the kind of contributions I have made to Indian cricket, I still have a lot to contribute. I was given an interesting stat some time ago.

“I was told that whenever I have scored more than 70 or 80 runs for the Indian team, about 80 per cent of the time India have gone on to win…or we haven’t lost that particular Test match,” he said.

However, Pujara – a veteran of 103 Tests, isn’t about selection and is focusing on sharpening his skills.

“In my cricketing career, I have been put under pressure so many times where I’ve lost my spot in the team. But you just try and play for the team. You don’t try and play for your spot.

“If you play for your spot, you’re just another selfish cricketer who is just being there in the playing XI, playing for the spot but not contributing to the team.”

(With PTI Inputs)