Cheteshwar Pujara's Fitting Reply To India Greats Who Slammed Ravindra Jadeja's Lord's Knock

NDTV

6 days ago

India's finest performer in the Lord's Test, Cheteshwar Pujara, somehow finds himself in the line of fire for not showing a more attacking intent in the final phase of the match. Jadeja remained unbeaten on 61 after facing 181 balls, but England somehow managed to get the other 10 Indian batters out, hence securing a 22-run victory to go 2-1 up in the series. Jadeja's valiant effort was acknowledged by even England players, but some cricket greats decided to point out the little flaw in his approach.
The likes of Anil Kumble, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravichandran Ashwi,n and even Sourav Ganguly felt that Jadeja could've adopted a more attacking approach at Lord's, especially against a spinner like Shoaib Bashir.
Cheteshwar Pujara, one of India's finest Test batters of his generation, however, isn't happy seeing Jadeja courting criticism despite a heroic effort.
"He couldn't have scored faster on that track. I felt that it was because the ball was soft, and the pitch was on the slower side. I guess, Jadeja would have thought that the tailenders were batting well and the team was getting close to the total. And once they were a little closer he would have taken his chances. I thought he was batting well. It was very difficult to score runs on that pitch," Pujara was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
"The only thing he could have done better is to look to score down the ground. Like there was a gap between mid-off and cover," he says.
With the ball getting softer with every passing over, even playing down the ground to find boundaries became difficult for Jadeja. His approach remained to take a single on the 5th or 6th ball of the over to prevent either Bumrah or Siraj from facing too many balls. Pujara feels Jadeja has shown significant improvement in his batting, especially abroad, which should be lauded.
"For the last five years, he has improved, especially abroad. He has been working hard. If you notice, even on the match day, he does his net practice. He has shown improvement when playing pace," says Pujara
"Earlier, it was the case of him not converting his good starts to big scores at the highest level. See one can't get 300 in first-class cricket without skills. But you need to convert, like you do at first-class level, at international level," says Pujara.
Pujara, who has also played with Jadeja in the Ranji Trophy for Saurashtra, was even amazed to see how well Jadeja was able to face seamers in English conditions these days.
"He is now able to face seamers and spinners equally well. Earlier, he was a good player of spin but lacked a little bit of strength against seamers, which is not the case now," says Pujara.