Pat Cummins hails Cheteshwar Pujara's slow batting approach in the recent Australian tour

Cheteshwar Pujara has now helped India to beat Australia in their own conditions twice now. During the first tour, the Australians just didn’t have an answer for what the Saurashtra batsman had presented. However, when he travelled back during the 2020-21 tour, it seemed that the Australian bowlers had clearly set up a plan. 

Fast-bowler Pat Cummins has admitted that the Australian bowlers had their own plans during the Test series but Pujara seemed prepared as well. Throughout the entire series, the batsman took a more orthodox approach to bat and his strike rate was less than 30. But, it was his game which actually helped India bat time in the third and fourth Tests. 

During an interaction with ESPN Cricinfo, Cummins revealed that he thought after the first two matches, India’s no.3 will look to score a little more runs freely and take the attack on the Aussie bowlers. However, Pujara didn’t do that. His scores in the last two Test matches were: 50 off 176, 77 off 205, 25 off 94 and 56 off 211. 

I thought Cheteshwar Pujara would put pressure back on the bowlers: Pat Cummins

“It’s interesting. After the first two games, in some ways, I thought he might have had to adapt to try to take the game on a little bit more and put pressure back on the bowlers. But if anything, he went the other way. He went, ‘No, I know my game so well, I’m going to just bat and bat and scoring will take care of itself’ – whether it’s down the other end or later in his innings,” Cummins said. 

Cummins made an observation that Pujara’s mainly planned to wear off the bowlers while they were bowling good spells, only so that the lower order can cope and take the attack on them. The plan actually worked for India in the fourth innings of the third and the fourth Test of the series, in the best way possible. 

“Maybe we set some tighter fields than we did a couple of years ago, but I felt like a lot of the time he was there just to face out the tough spells, bat and bat and bat, and in some ways selflessly take some overs out of the bowlers and the ball, with the hope that the lower middle order can cash in even if he doesn’t,” Cummins added.