Cheteshwar Pujara: Lack of Hundreds and not the form

Cheteshwar Arvind Pujara is old school and is a classic Test match batter. He is known for his patience, grit, and resilience. He is known for his ability to occupy the crease for long periods of time and wear the bowlers down, till they get exhausted. He is known for his ability to remain in the present, focus on the next ball and play it to its merit. This is what has made him such a successful batter for India over the years. In the second Test of the ongoing series, the 100-run, 49.3 over partnership along with Ajinkya brought India back into the match, reminding us all the value Pujara brings to the side.

From the above graph, one may think there has been a decline in Cheteshwar’s form in the last 2 years. After all, he made his last century on Jan 3, 2019. It has been more than 30 months and 34 innings since he scored a century. Clearly, this is a tough phase but it is not entirely due to lack of form. It is the drought of big scores that Cheteshwar has to address now. He is otherwise known for his ability to convert the fifties into hundreds and hundreds into daddy hundreds, as he has a century average of 146.89.

The Cheteshwar Pujara approach

To understand what has gone wrong, understanding the way the Saurashtrian builds his innings is of paramount importance. He is not someone who is in a hurry to get off the mark. He does not look to feel bat on the ball at the early stages of his innings.  He looks to get his eye in first, even if it means he is not scoring runs. Only gradually does he start rotating the strike more often and start moving his feet freely. As the inning progresses, he gets set and bowlers get tired, he increases the rotation of strike and the boundary frequency.

What has Changed?

The difference now is that Pujara is unable to rotate the strike as frequently as he would want to. As a result, his mindset has become more about survival, than about scoring runs. The same is reflected in the dip in strike rate in the last 2 years. Even though strike rate is not the most important factor in the longest form of the game, it tells us about how comfortable the batter is. The talk that “Pujara has always batted this way” is not true.

It is apparent that there is a significant drop in the strike rate in the last 2 years indicating Pujara may be getting stuck on the crease. Because of this inability to rotate strike every now and then, his dot ball percentage has increased significantly. Until 2019, his dot ball percentage was approximately 75.22% whereas in the years 2020 and 2021, it has sky-rocketed to 85.1%. Therefore, though he is occupying the crease for long as depicted in the graph below, he seems to get stuck at the crease, making it easy for bowlers to get into a rhythm and set him up.

Going Forward

Given that he played a match-saving knock in the second Test, it will definitely boost his confidence. Let us hope that he comes out with an intent of not just staying at the crease but also to score runs while he is at it, which may help him score a hundred.

Written by- Saravana Chilamakuri