As Cheteshwar Pujara retires from professional cricket, questions remain about whether the game will ever see another batter with his unique skill set. Known for his patience and resilience, Pujara famously faced 1,258 balls across seven innings during India’s historic 2018-19 Test series win in Australia. He repeated the feat in the 2020-21 tour, once again playing a crucial role in India’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy triumph Down Under. But in today’s fast-paced, T20-driven era, is there still room for batters like him?
Australian cricketer Alyssa Healy, who has often watched her husband Mitchell Starc go head-to-head with Pujara, admitted that very few modern players possess the kind of mental toughness that defined his career.
“I don’t have the mental fortitude to be able to do that. When you put it like that, that’s wild,” Healy said on the “Willow Talk” podcast.
“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 pointed out how Australian batters like Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuschagne struggled to impose themselves against India in their last meeting. She noted that modern batting has shifted away from spending time at the crease to focusing more on scoring quickly.
“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 McSweeney (Nathan) 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.
Healy added that it’s unlikely cricket will see another batter like Pujara, given how much the game has changed in recent years.
“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.
“But you think about the guys in world cricket at the moment who play similar sorts of roles – Joe Root, Steve Smith in our group. They play a similar sort of anchor role and let the guys sort of flourish around them, which I think is a really important.”
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