Former Indian batter Cheteshwar Pujara announced his retirement from all forms of Indian cricket on Sunday, August 24. He called time on his Test career after playing 103 Test matches for India and scoring 7195 runs at an average of 43.6.
Pujara faced almost double the number of balls than the number of runs scored in Test cricket. He faced a total of 16217 balls in his Test career that spanned for nearly 15 years. Most of those deliveries he faced came against England and Australia.
He enjoyed rich success in the format against Australia, scoring 2074 runs against them in 25 Test matches. He scored five centuries and 11 fifties against the Aussies. Pujara played a big part in India’s two major Test series wins in Australia in 2018-19 and 2020-21.
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He Was Huge Part Of Those Two Series Wins - Alyssa Healy On Cheteshwar Pujara
In the 2018-19 series, which marked India’s first-ever Test series win Down Under, Pujara stood tall with 521 runs at an average of 74.43, batting a staggering 1258 balls. In the 2020-21 series, he faced 928 deliveries in that series, wearing down Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, and Nathan Lyon. He scored 271 runs in that series and all of them came at important times for his team.
After Cheteshwar Pujara’s retirement, Mitchell Starc’s wife Alyssa Healy recalled the tough times that Indian batter gave to Starc and co whenever the teams played, especially on Australian soil.
"I don't have the mental fortitude to be able to do that. When you put it like that, that's wild. And he was a huge part of those two series wins against Australia, because he kept that bowling attack out and drained them and made them work so hard. And I think by the end of it, they just stopped trying to get him out and tried to get the other end out because they just figured it was too hard” Healy spoke on the Willow Talk podcast.
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Pujara An Old-School Batter, The Last Of His Kind- Alyssa Healy
Healy further said that Cheteshwar Pujara was the last of his kind, being an old school Test batter and the world would not see anymore like him in the future.
"I wouldn't have thought so. I think more often now it's how do I score? And you still look at Test cricket now, we spoke about it last summer, like (Nathan) McSweeney came in and sort of got stuck, Marnus (Labuschagne) came in, got stuck, and all we spoke about was they need to look to score first. Whereas I think that conversation has changed over the years. It probably used to be, how do we keep him out? How do I bat for long periods of time? So no, I don't think we necessarily will see someone like that again” she concluded saying.
Pujara ended his Test career with 19 centuries, the last of which came against Bangladesh in 2022 in a winning cause. It took him almost three years to score his final Test century, but it was worth the wait.
Also Read: “Haven’t Thought About It” - Cheteshwar Pujara On Coaching Post Retirement
