After 13 years of Test cricket, 7195 runs, 19 hundreds, soaking 16,217 balls, stitching numerous heroic efforts, battling physical pain and mental exhaustion, Cheteshwar Pujara has folded his Test whites. He talks to The Indian Express about the art of batting time and how he mastered it.
Cheteshwar Pujara: When I played in the Under-14 age group for Saurashtra, we had a weak batting line-up. A lot depended on me, and so it was not enough for me to score just a hundred. I had to stay on and score a double hundred, perhaps triple, otherwise the team might get pulled out. So from responsibility came patience. The same applied in different age groups because until I was in the Ranji Trophy, we were not the strongest in the circuit. Even the Ranji team, even though we had good players, we were building a team. So that allowed me to become mature very quickly. I realised there is more responsibility on my shoulders. I learned to play with a lot of patience and commitment and put a heavy price on my wicket. It became a habit, and I carried it to international cricket.
Cheteshwar Pujara: For me, it was more of a routine because you find out your success mantra there. It was about going into the nets and hitting as many balls as possible. Whether I scored runs or not didn’t matter. But later on in my career, I also realised that it’s not just about quantity but also quality which is important. So later on, I realised the importance of managing time and being smart. You don’t need to bat for 45 minutes if you can achieve the same thing in 15 minutes. But that only comes with the experience. So earlier days, it was always about quantity, but as I played more cricket, I realised that the balance of quality and quantity is important.
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