County cricket has definitely helped me: Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara felt his recent county cricket stint with Nottinghamshire had helped him improve his batting on challenging pitches, such as the green top at Eden Gardens for the first Test between India and Sri Lanka.

Pujara showed excellent composure while batting in overcast conditions for the curtailed first two days and top-scored with 52 on the third morning as India mustered 172 to which Sri Lanka has so far responded with 165 for 4.

“I think playing county cricket has definitely helped me,” he said on Saturday. “This season, I played eight games, which is almost half of the county matches. Over there usually in a season you play 16 games. I played four games before the (away) Sri Lanka series and four games after it. So totally it was eight games and it gave me a lot of experience and exposure over there.”

The numbers weren’t too impressive: 333 runs at 27.75 with a top score of 112. He notched up much better numbers for Saurashtra in the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy earlier this month, hitting 204 and 182 in the last two games out of four he played after returning from England. But playing on difficult pitches, he felt, had made him better.

“I got to play on many challenging wickets over there,” he pointed out. “So as a cricketer, as a batsman, I learned many things. I improved my game and understood my game, which is definitely helping me in such conditions.”

The proof of the pudding was his first-innings knock in Kolkata, and he said seeing that more character was required to bat on that surface was what geed him up. “Personally, I always love playing on challenging wickets because it suits my temperament and technique and that is where your character comes up,” he suggested. “If you start scoring runs on such wickets, as a cricketer and a batsman, you feel confident and you can pull your team out of trouble. So sometimes when wickets are such or conditions are difficult, I try and motivate myself and tell myself that ‘today is the day that I’ll have to stay strong and show my character’.”

He termed his knock satisfying and felt India wasn't out of the game yet: “Especially when the team is in trouble, if you can score some runs and put up a fighting total on the board … at this stage I think we are very much in the game. Obviously the wicket has got a little better, but at the same time, we have got 170-odd runs and we have four wickets now. We are very confident that if the weather permits, we’ll try and make a game out of it.”

Pujara said that the conditions were “much better” for batting on the third day, but wasn't going to use that as an excuse. “It’s always tough but weather is not in our hands,” he offered. “That is what Test cricket is all about. As a cricketer, whether you are a batsman or bowler, you need to learn that when there is an interruption, you still have to focus again. You just have to start your concentration again. It’s tough for a batsman, to be honest.

“Yesterday when we were going well there was a rain interruption. We looked really good. Obviously we were 70 for 5 but myself and Wriddhi (Wriddhiman Saha) were having a chat, that we just got that momentum but suddenly there was a rain interruption. But you just have to accept it. Test cricket is all about getting used to different conditions and situations.”

Pujara admitted India should have ideally got 30-40 runs more than what it ended up with, but said it was still a fighting total. “I was batting well apart from that one particular ball, where I was a little surprised with the way the ball deviated,” he said. “But at the same time, you still have to give credit to the bowlers. On such wickets if you get a good ball, you get out. You just have to accept it. As long as you are at the crease you need to make sure you try and play as many balls as possible, rotate the strike, and score as many runs as possible for the team.

“This is not a wicket where you will get 350 or 400 on the board. “It’s a wicket where we might have added 30-40 runs more than we got, but 170 is still a decent total considering the way the wicket was behaving on the first two days.”