Cheteshwar Pujara takes a blinder of a catch to send back Angelo Mathews

Cheteshwar Pujara isn’t the most athletic of fielders in the Indian team but he certainly is sharp with the catches and thus always fields close to the bat. He pulled off a blinder on Day 3 of the 2nd Test. He pouched one from Angelo Mathews out of nowhere while fielding at leg slip. Pujara has great reflexes and he brought them into force to pluck this one in Sri Lanka’s first innings.

In the 34th over of the inning, Ravichandran Ashwin bowled an off-spinner that spun viciously. Mathews, in his attempt to dab it down towards fine leg, ended up hitting it towards leg-slip where Pujara with very little reaction time was sharp to dive to his left and get his hand down just in time to keep it off the grass. The batsman’s reaction after he saw that the catch was completed showed what a stunning catch it was. Thus, the former Lankan captain, Angelo Mathews had to walk back on 26.

Pujara has been working very hard on his fitness, as he revealed in an interview recently, and the results are showing in his performance as a fielder. “When you get injured, you need to get that rhythm going for you again as your concentration goes down. The injury was the toughest part of my career but now I have come out of it and I am working hard on my fitness.”

Kusal Mendis’ fine century 

On day three, Sri Lanka were dismantled on 183 in their first innings and were asked to follow-on by the Indian captain. At stumps, they had managed 209/2 on the back of a fine century from Kusal Mendis and a 92 by Dimuth Karunaratne. Ravi Ashwin took his 26th five-wicket haul and Ravindra Jadeja pocketed his 150th Test wicket. He is now the second fastest Indian cricketer to get to 150 Test wickets, Ashwin had done the same in fewer games.

Watch Pujara’s brilliance here

Wht a catch! @cheteshwar1 extraordinary ? pic.twitter.com/XAVTHGps66

— प्रशांत मिश्र (@prashant1347) August 5, 2017