Pujara The Occupier

The nth article on why Pujara does his job to perfection

Everyone except Cheteshwar Pujara knows how Cheteshwar Pujara should bat. Ricky Ponting knows, Shane Warne knows better, and your entire Twitter timeline knows even better. It seems like the internet is one humongous debate on how Pujara should play his game.

Since you’ve read 10,000 articles on Pujara, why not try the 10,001st?

Much was made of Pujara’s indifferent run of form in his 2014/15 overseas cycle. A closer analysis of his dismissal doesn’t reveal a pattern of being weak against pace or swing, except perhaps a susceptibility to the incoming ball. In the 2018 overseas cycle, Pujara plays a few solid innings in perhaps the most challenging conditions India have faced this millennium. The Dukes ball swings all day in the English summer of 2018. South Africa prepare green pitches as an act of retribution. If you look at his average, it isn’t very flattering. But he’s played 1068 balls for 13 dismissals, being run out thrice. He’s done his job: coming in early and blunting the ball. This pays dividends in Australia, of which we all know. In New Zealand, he is India’s second highest scorer, 2 runs behind Mayank Agarwal, having faced 350 balls in 2 matches.

To combat the incoming ball, his technique has changed slightly. He stays slightly leg side of the ball, keeps his pads away, and plays with almost a dead bat. The backlift is negligible, the ball almost goes backward hitting the bat. This is in stark contrast to someone like Shubman Gill or Rohit Sharma. High backlift, solid stride, energetic bat swing.

A Gill or a Kohli takes risk trying to make shots on even good balls. This brings them the runs, but also makes them more vulnerable to getting out. Pujara’s strategy is the diametrically opposite. He has zero interest in attacking the ball until and unless it’s absolutely required. People ask why Pujara seems to get out to jaffas. It’s because he simply doesn’t make unforced errors. A batsman gets out in a variety of ways, but you’ll never see Pujara get out flashing at a wide one, or lofting one into the hands of an outfielder. He deflates the chances of him getting out to a non-jaffa. And therefore, only jaffas seem to get him out.

Pujara is the examination in a graduate level Test bowling course. Test bowling is about bowling the same ball again, and again, and again. Pujara makes the bowler do that, trusting his technique. He asks the bowler to construct a wicket, to bowl 50 balls at the same place and hope for natural variation to get him out. He strips it to the elements of cricket: I’ll try to stay in, you try to get me out.

This is the crux of Pujara’s batting: occupation of the crease. A plot of his runs scored as his innings progresses shows a clear strategy outside India, where conditions assist pace as the dominant form of bowling.

His scoring rate in Asia matches the average batsman, but the same outside Asia is significantly lower. This is not a bad thing. It’s proof of his method. He displays monk-like discipline outside the off stump, just leaving or blocking. Anything on the pads, he flicks and collect runs. But he shuts down any modes of dismissal outside the off stump. Does this work? Let’s have a look at the chances of crossing fifty balls.

Voila! Pujara has a median score of 15 runs at the 50-ball mark outside Asia (before the Brisbane Test). But… he crosses 50 balls more often than most batsmen, beaten only by AB de Villiers, Marnus Labuschagne and Shiv Chanderpaul. If his brief is to blunt the ball, his method works. It works better than most.

Since 2015, Pujara plays 103 balls per out outside Asia. This is the third highest among players with at least 30 innings, behind Smith (127.7) and Williamson (116.7). In a bowling-friendly era and coming on the back of unsure and inconsistent openers, Pujara does his job perfectly.

This series against Australia, the TV commentators have made repeated noise about Pujara’s scoring rate. This has been followed by endless chatter on social media. Theories fly around that somehow Pujara’s blockathons “put pressure on the batsman at the other end”. Unless a declaration is in the offing, I don’t see how playing time and occupying the crease are bad in any way in an era when most matches finish in four days.

Strike rate is not a knob on the batsman’s body that can be turned at will. It is a function of conditions and the bowling attack one faces. This series, the Australians have kept the pressure on with exceptionally consistent bowling. One can count on one’s fingers the number of rank bad balls Pujara has received from Hazlewood and Cummins. When he does get the bad ball, he puts it away. Like those three boundaries against Cummins.

But he's most focused on just staying there. As I type, he has already faced more than 800 balls this series. He is occupying, and he’s doing it well.

Yes, you’ll say that Cummins has had his number this series, perhaps. But that is a testament to the quality of Cummins (and Hazlewood). Pujara’s beside-the-line technique leaves him open to that magic ball that angles in and goes out. If a batsman were to pick one weakness, it would be this, because it’s a magnificent sort of delivery, unicorn-like in its frequency of appearance. Cummins bowls it once every 5 overs. Because he’s an all-time great. If that is the weakness my number three has, I’d take him with both hands, strike rate be damned!