It's All About Pujara And The Bowlers

The 70-­odd extra runs scored as Cheteshwar Pujara carried the lower order gave the Indian bowlers just the cushion they needed as they overshadowed their much-vaunted batting teammates.

After many a thrill and spill, India has emerged victorious in the first Test in Adelaide against Australia. The century by Cheteshwar Pujara will rank as one of the finest Test hundreds by an Indian batsman considering the situation the team was in at lunch time on day one after the Indian skipper Virat Kohli had opted to bat after winning the toss. The careless shots played by the top­order Indian batsmen in that first session were hard to digest simply because there was nothing that the bowler had done with the earlier deliveries for them to attempt those shots. They were also not playing for the first time in Australia, so it wasn’t as if they were surprised by the pace and bounce in the pitch of which there was hardly any. Pujara then showed them what a Test innings should be by pacing his innings beautifully. He was patient at the start as he usually is, and then when the lower order was with him, he accelerated without taking any risks and added valuable runs for the team.

Those 70­odd extra runs gave the Indian bowlers just the cushion they needed as they once again overshadowed their much-vaunted batting teammates. There is an old saying that unless a team takes 20 wickets, they can’t win. Well, the Indian bowlers took 20 wickets in seven out of the eight Test matches that were played in South Africa and England earlier this year, yet India lost those series simply because the batsmen didn’t score enough runs.