Cheteshwar Pujara: An unassuming hero on the threshold of greatness

Followers of Indian cricket tend to deify their heroes. This leads to some cricketers being elevated to demigods and the assessment of their on-field performance is influenced by their off-field image.

However, every generation seems to throw up an unassuming hero who, in the long run, turns out to be a bigger match winner than initially understood. In the current team Cheteshwar Pujara, who scored one more century this morning in the ongoing Test series against Australia, is one such player. With more than 60 Tests in different countries under his belt, Pujara with a batting average a shade under 50 is on the threshold of greatness.

Sunil Gavaskar, an earlier batting great, observed that over time it is temperament which most influences a batsman’s success. Pujara is the embodiment of what the right mental approach can do. In an era when Indian cricket has produced quite a few highly talented batsmen Pujara outperformed most through a combination of work ethic, determination and dedication to the team’s cause.

The outcome has been a high degree of correlation between his performance and the team’s success. For instance, India’s victory in the first Test of the series was based entirely on Pujara’s ability to slowly transform an adverse situation into a winning one. It’s time India’s cricket fans hail an unassuming hero who lets his performance do the talking.