Episode 5 - Rajkot vs. Pune and Eng vs. SA

The crew reviews the free agents picked by the 2 new IPL franchises at Pune and Rajkot. We also do a positional battle style preview of different player groups in the upcoming England Vs South Africa series.

The Pujara Puzzle

In recent times, no one has confused the Indian cricket fan as much as Cheteshwar Pujara. For many bastsmen, the Test debut is one of their greatest career moments. But with Pujara, one always felt that it was a mere ceremonial humdrum. He worked his way into the India team as an experienced cricketer in the domestic circuit. For once, rationale prevailed over bias within the Indian selection committee. Pujara walked in at a comfortable situation of 3-346 on a dead Bangalore wicket in 2010 after Vijay and Sachin had grounded Australia into submission. He failed to live up to his hype and failed in his first innings, after missing a swerving in-dipper from a rampaging Mitchell Johnson. The fan in me felt bad for Pujara and such a failure can be considered sacrilege. One can only imagine what must have gone through Pujara’s head at that time. After serving time at domestic cricket, he finally got his chance in the international scene and failed to capitalize on it. Two days later, chasing 207 for victory, M.S.Dhoni gave another opportunity to Pujara and made him bat at number three ahead of Rahul Dravid. Pujara grabbed the chance, played with resolute confidence. He showed an appetite for hard fought test cricket and made a flawless 72 . Even the purists in the commentary box were left with no faults to pick on. This was working proof that the Indian domestic circuit could still churn out players of high quality. It was poetic that this had to happen at Bangalore with Rahul Dravid watching from the dressing room.

Fast forward 6 years to 2015, to the second innings of the Delhi test where Pujara once again had settled into his innings after facing over 100 balls. With India comfortably ahead of South Africa in the game, on a pitch that didn’t pose any imminent threat, one expected India’s hardworking number three batsman to get a huge score. Disappointingly, as it has been with Pujara in recent times, he missed and got bowled to a straight ball from Imran Tahir. This was not the first time cricket analysts and fans scratched their head wondering why Pujara hasn’t become the cricketer he set out to be. Objectively, any problem with batting in Test Cricket can be categorized into either a technical or a temperamental problem. If ever one had seen Pujara bat, one would know for sure that he does not have an issue with temperament. He has a combination of calmness and opportunistic aggression, like that of a pugilist monk. So what is wrong with Pujara? Taking a closer look at his technique, one finds that Pujara’s trusted game is the classic straight dead bat defense. It is beautiful to watch, the bat comes down straight and meets the ball in front of the left pad. But, the caveat is that this doesn’t work well when the lateral movement on the ball is subtle. When you try to meet the ball in front of the pad on the front foot, a small gap is created between bat and pad. When the lateral movement on the ball is subtle, the odd one will sneak through this gap to hit off stump. This is the reason why you see bowlers that like to hit the deck troubling Pujara more than the traditional swing bowlers with obvious lateral movement. Against spinners, such a defense has often been hailed as kryptonite as you remove the possibility of being leg before wicket. But against bowlers who are willing to flight the ball and give it a rip, one is bound to lose sight of the ball for a fraction of a second when trying to play in front of your pad. Instinctively one tends to play for the turn in this case, and when it doesn’t turn as much as expected, you tend to miss the ball. It goes without saying that a bowler has to be immensely accurate to exploit this weakness and given the mental strength and tactical nous of Pujara, he invariably makes an assured 30 before someone eventually gets to this flaw. In the six innings that Pujara has played in the test series against South Africa, he has been bowled out three times. Once to Kyle Abbot, and once each to Tahir and Duminy, both being on balls that did not turn as much as expected. As much as one tries to dissect and delineate Pujara’s technique, one does not find anything wrong other than the aforementioned chink in his armory. It is even more puzzling that the pattern has been very evident for more than a year now. 

Article by Jeyenth Veerarahavan.

Episode 4 - Pitch Perfect

The Fast Appeal Podcast team discuss the impact that pitches have in the outcome of test matches and whether the use of rank turners in the India Vs. South Africa series can be considered unfair. Among other things we also give our initial impressions of day night test matches based on the Adelaide test.