Cheteshwar Pujara knows the art of batting in England. In the last three seasons for Sussex county, he scored 2244 runs, with 10 hundreds and three fifties. He also knows the pitfalls of England as he averages 39.51 in Tests against England, which comes down to 29.00 in 16 Tests in England. That was due to his first Test season in 2014, where he averaged 22.00 in five Tests. Pujara, who is now in England as commentator, explains the challenges and mental skills needed to succeed in England.
What is that one thing that should be at the top of your mind when batting in England?
It is a mental battle here, so one needs to stay positive. Since the conditions are challenging, only if you are confident you can do well in England. It is very easy to get into a negative mindset here. For someone who has already played in England, it is slightly easier because they know how to tackle such conditions but for a young player, the biggest challenge is to get acclimatized. You are bound to fail in those challenging conditions. If you stay positive you will see results maybe in the second or the third test match.
This was the mental part, what about the technique tweak?
One needs to know your strengths and what shots you can play in these conditions. For example, if someone is very good at driving, you can’t drive the ball when the ball is new. You have to wait for the right time to drive the ball. One needs to respect the conditions and maybe cut down on a few of your shots. When the time is right, when you feel that you are set and the ball is also old, that’s when you start playing shots. Even when you are doing your preparation, you have to keep in mind that these are the shots which I’ll play when I’m set and these are the shots I need to avoid in the early part of my innings.
They say in England you need to play late, keep your eyes on the ball all the time…
So when you are looking to play late, you allow the ball to come at you. You make an impact slightly later than what you normally do on a slower pitch. So you are allowing the ball to come to you and then you’re playing close to the body. Even if you’re defending or if you’re looking to drive the ball, you allow the ball to come close to your body and then make the decision of either defending it or driving it.
If you wait for the ball, how do you get the power for it?
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You just look to time the ball because there’s enough pace from the pitch. So if you time the ball well, you still get turns. There might be occasions where you may not get a boundary, but you still get 2s and 3s. Even that is fine when the ball is still new. Once the ball gets older, you can use a bit of force but still continue to let the ball come to you and not reach for it. When playing away from the body, if you try to get a little bit of force, you can end up edging the ball.
It is said, in England you are never in …
That’s because the ball swings throughout the day. There is something in the pitch most of the time. That’s the reason you feel you’re not in. You need to concentrate throughout your innings. Playing in India, once you are set the margin of error for a batsman is on the higher side. At times even if you make a mistake, you may not get out. In England whether you’re defending or playing a shot, the margin of error is less.
You spoke about the restraint, playing closer to the body but if a player is in England playing Tests soon after a good IPL season how difficult is the adjustment? How do you train?
That is the biggest challenge for any player. Because if you’re coming from a white ball format, and if that’s T20, then your muscle memory tends to push you to play a few more shots and your hands up a little harder. To make those necessary changes to adapt to the red ball is a bit of a challenge. And the players who are good in all three formats, they try to adapt to those things quickly. The younger players, because they don’t have enough experience of playing in England, might take a little longer to adapt to those conditions.
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One needs to know your strengths and what shots you can play in these conditions, says former India batter Pujara. (REUTERS)
What exactly does one do to beat that muscle memory?
I think you need enough time as well. But if you look at this series, there is time but I wouldn’t say that there was a lot of time. Because if you look at the turnaround time for players who were part of the IPL, it’s just about two weeks, or a little bit more. Ideally you should get three to three and a half weeks before the big Test series to prepare after IPL.
As the new Test champions South Africa had quite a few Test specialists in the team. Do you think, in the same as India’s T20 squad that is very different from the ODI squad, we need a Test squad of long-format specialists?
Definitely. I genuinely believe that if you look at the way things are progressing in international cricket, every team is slowly moving towards a white ball squad and a red ball squad. So, we need to ensure that we pay enough attention to our red ball players and ensure that we preserve them, make sure that they are playing red ball only. You will have two, three or four players who are playing other formats as well, but you will still need to make sure that they are good at that format. White ball players need not be part of the red ball games.
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Sometimes what we do is that because we are not finding enough players in red ball, we tend to pick players from white ball for red ball games. Earlier it used to be the other way around, but now things are moving differently and if we start picking squad, especially the red ball squad from the white ball, then the results will not be positive. For bowlers, it might be different, but for a batter, you need to be playing some domestic cricket, some red ball cricket.
You had two stints with Yorkshire and played at Leeds a lot, what are the conditions and pitch like?
I think normally when you play at the start of the summer the weather is on the cooler side. But this time it is better and even the pitch would have settled down a bit because of the weather. If the sun comes out and there is not much moisture on the pitch and it normally is a good pitch to bat on. But I will still say that the pitch has decent pace and bounce. The pitch will have something in it for the bowlers with the new ball. But once you see through that phase and the ball gets older, it’s one of the best pitches to bat in England.
Any scope for spinners, should India play two of them?
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No, I won’t play two spinners on that one. Definitely not. But I think the spinners will come into play from Day 3 three onwards. It won’t be in the first innings. Most likely, they will have a bigger role in the second innings. But you won’t play two. There won’t be a lot here for a finger spinner. I would go with a wrist spinner. But if Kuldeep Yadav (left-arm wrist spinner) plays and India leaves out Ravindra Jadeja (finger spinner all-rounder), the batting line-up will become weak. So the Indian team can’t afford to play a wrist spinner.