Indian wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik has come out in support of Cheteshwar Pujara amidst the talk surrounding veteran batsman’s low strike rate ahead of the much-awaited ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand, starting on June 18 in Southampton.
Pujara's strike rate had become the talk of the town after his slow knocks during India’s Test tour of Australia earlier this year. Though, the right-hander has never been a quick run-scorer, but he has been crucial in the team’s cause over the years in Test cricket.
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Ahead of the WTC 2021 Final, Karthik, who is in England as a commentator for the WTC Final, urged people to let Pujara play his own game at whatever strike-rate he wants to play, as he feels the strike-rate is absolute nonsense as long as he is able to win the games for India.
Karthik said during the Twitter Spaces session organized by Star Sports ahead of the WTC 2021 Final: “If you take the number of Test matches that have gotten over in four days – it is about 80-82 percent. I feel this strike rate is absolute nonsense. So, why bother about strike rate, let the guy play at whatever strike rate he wants to play, as long as he is able to win Test matches for India.”
He further added, “Now, Pujara, why hasn't he scored runs? You have to understand, if you take the last match, he was playing against ranked turners, where the team was finding it hard to score 200 runs, and to expect Pujara to score a 100 is unfair. We have played on some tough conditions; you can't always put up numbers to justify how well a guy is playing.”
On Pujara's gritty knocks in the Sydney and Brisbane Test, Karthik pointed out: “If you take that Sydney Test, the number of blows that he just took. Pat Cummins was talking to me about that in IPL – saying the difference between India drawing the Test match and losing it was one man, Cheteshwar Pujara. The amount of time that he batted, he was giving him body blows.”
The wicketkeeper-batsman further explained, “If you had put any of the other Indian batsmen at that stage of the day, early on when there is probably a little bit of juice, they would have struggled. There was a good chance we would have capitulated in that game. For us to not cross that hurdle, to get to Brisbane unscathed, the reason was Pujara in a big way.”
He signed off by saying, “We can sit down and say, oh he has not got a 100. It doesn't matter. We know his caliber, we know his quality, his ability to play a long inning. I have no doubt that Pujara is a kingpin for us in Test cricket and we don't need to be too engrossed in numbers to get 100-plus runs.”
(With PTI inputs)
