Cheteshwar Pujara Is The Key To India's Success In England, But Is He Feeling The Pressure A Little Too Much?

Most times at the crease, Cheteshwar Pujara looks like he has just teleported in from the past. Lately, though, he has worryingly seemed stuck in a time loop. For those nervously looking at the clock as the first Test against England nears, the batsman's ordinary run of form this year may seem like a bad omen.

For Pujara, who seems cursed with that common affliction of intelligent batsmen - the tendency to over-think one's game - everything may seem on the line. Each time he walks out to bat in England, his poor away record will hang over his head like the sword of Damocles. Every time he is dismissed, it will plunge an inch closer and sway mockingly.

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This isn't the way things were supposed to pan out for India's successor to Rahul Dravid.

To be fair to the Saurashtra cricketer, being a Test specialist in the T20 era is a hard job. For a batsman of such rare defensive skills as the stoic Pujara, it is easy to be misunderstood. With most teams paying scant respect to the virtues of patience even in long form cricket, being forever hauled up for a 'lack of intent' seems to come with the territory. Then there are the long periods out of the game as the multi-format stars ply their trade away from Tests. Game time is scarce, and so is quality bowling at the first-class level. Coming into form takes longer.

It's easier to be lulled into a false sense of complacency against ordinary attacks. It's only when the Test begins that Pujara may find he is half a second behind in judging that speedy incoming delivery. It is then that he may find the gnawing fear of getting bogged down welling up all over again. In such circumstances, honing the mind is the first step.

That last step is difficult but hardly impossible for established batsmen with established patterns of play.

For Pujara, it may be time to unleash a newer, refined, less cautious but more calculated version of himself. As things stand, he is far from being the complete, all-weather Test specialist he started out with the promise of being.

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At first glance, there is no crisis. He was on a roll in 2016 and 2017, scoring 1976 runs from 22 Tests. There are no two ways about it: Pujara is among the best of his generation in India or Sri Lanka, where the slower, lower pitches allow him more time to get to the pitch of the spinning ball and use that bottom hand to nudge, cut, drive, flick or prise out the gaps. Of his 14 Test hundreds, 10 have come at home, where he averages an outstanding 62.42. It almost seems to follow that he has three Test tons in Lanka too.

But there's the rub: that leaves just one Test century outside Asia, the 153 in Johannesburg in late 2013. So it's the 24 away Tests that hide the story of Pujara's inadequacies. In 17 of those Tests - specifically, those against Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa - he averages just 27.09, a steep fall from his career average of 50.34. His strike rate falls to 40.25. Against these teams away from home, he has repeatedly got starts and squandered them. This is not to question his basic competence against stronger teams, of course, since at home against these same four teams he averages 61.70 and has eight hundreds from 27 Tests.

It could be that outside familiar subcontinental conditions, Pujara's game needs fine-tuning. That much has been apparent since his first real dip in form at the international level in 2014 as India performed woefully overseas. It may be time for some reinvention; time to add another dimension to his game.

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In England last time around, with all the spotlight on Virat Kohli's struggles, Pujara averaged just 22.20, the worst-ever average by an Indian No. 3 batsman against England in England. That 2014 series also included a 117-ball 28 at Lord's in which his strike rate was just 23.93, his worst strike rate in an innings of 25-plus. Interestingly, what troubled him was seam, more than swing.

For someone who likes heavy runs going into a big tour, Pujara has been experiencing somewhat of a drought lately. He averaged just 14.33 from 12 innings for Yorkshire, including taking 70 minutes to get off the mark against Surrey. His Test average this year is below 20, and strike rate below 36. Having scored 88.59% of his runs at No. 3, in his last 2 Test innings he has found himself batting at No. 4. Add to that dodgy knees, a dubious run-out reputation and a few occasions in which he has been dropped in the recent past.

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In an era of grandstanding with the bat, Pujara's staying power at the crease is at the core of India's Test success away from home. But how much is too much? Right now, he seems stuck between two worlds, caught in two minds on whether to enforce the pace or be dictated by proceedings. It may well be that the team management planted the seeds of doubt, as Pujara himself has hinted, but good batsmen are known to defy the odds and deliver.

Pujara has parked himself in England well in advance, and been picking Joe Root's brains too. Now he must look within and rediscover his strengths. If he can reprise some of that innate old-world resilience, everyone's favourite batting anachronism will have done his duty.