‘Back at it’- Cheteshwar Pujara gets back to practise with Saurashtra cricketers

Cheteshwar Pujara, the Indian batsman, has resumed training after three months since the coronavirus pandemic started wreaking havoc. Pujara last played in the two-match Test series in New Zealand which Team India lost 2-0. He was set to play county cricket in England, but that has now been postponed due to the abject state in the United Kingdom (UK).

As far as practice is concerned, he hit the nets with Saurashtra teammates Jaydev Unadkat, Arpit Vasavada and Prerak Mankad. Pujara has been training at his academy, located in the outskirts of Rajkot. While speaking on their training sessions, Vasavada said during the lockdown phase, the players worked on their fitness, staying indoors.

Cheteshwar Pujara back into action

“It has been close to 10 days now. Though we were working on our fitness during the lockdown, there is no substitute to hitting the nets and it feels great. We are following all the government guidelines while practising,” Vasavada, who was the Player of the Match, against Bengal in the Ranji Trophy Final, was quoted as saying to the media.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) recently released some guidelines for the commencement of cricket after the COVID-19 pandemic. One of them was banning the use of saliva to shine the cricket leather. If a player uses it, then they will be warned after which bonus runs would be offered to the batting team.

Vasavada said that Unadkat has been practising without using saliva. “JD bhai (Unadkat) also joined us recently and is gradually increasing his time in the nets just like all of us. He is bowling without using saliva on the ball (recently banned by the ICC),” he stated.

About Pujara, he said that he along with the Indian batter would be trying to increase the practice intensity. “As for us (Pujara and I), we started with batting sessions of 10-15 minutes and plan to increase the intensity gradually. We have also some net bowlers who are based out of Rajkot. Initially, you need some time to get your reflexes back but now batting feels normal,” he added.

Later this year, Pujara has a tough task at hand as India are scheduled to play against Australia in an overseas Test series. But that he was the leading run-scorer the last time India went there would give him a whole lot of confidence.