India vs Australia: Ricky Ponting Unimpressed with Cheteshwar Pujara's Scoring Rate

Cheteshwar Pujara's slow batting is putting too much pressure on the other India batsmen, former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting said on Saturday while asking the India No. 3 to change his approach. "I don't think it was the right approach, I think he needed to be a bit more proactive with his scoring rate because I felt it was putting too much pressure on his batting partner," Ponting tweeted on Saturday.

ALSO READ - India vs Australia: Great Bowler, Poor Athlete - Hilarious Memes Surface on Twitter After Ashwin Careless Run Out

Pujara, who won the man of the series award in Australia back in 2018-19, scored 50 off 176 balls at a strike rate of 28.41 in the first innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday as the Australia bowlers kept a very tight and disciplined line.

He was caught behind off the bowling of Australia pace bowler Pat Cummins as the sixth wicket to fall.

Pujara has been dismissed by Cummins four out of the five times in this series. Nathan Lyon has picked him once, in the first innings of the first Test.

ALSO READ - India vs Australia: WATCH - Rishabh Pant Hit on Elbow and Taken for Scans, Injury Concern for Jadeja too

Cummins has got Pujara caught behind on three occasions and had him caught at gully once. The right-handed India batsman, who notched three centuries on the last tour including a 193 at the Sydney Cricket Ground, has managed to aggregate just 113 in five innings so far at an average of 22.6. This was his first half-century of this series.

Meanwhile, doubt over the Brisbane Test is at its high, former India cricketer Aakash Chopra said the Australian media was turning Team India’s unwillingness to go through another hard quarantine into something else. The former opener said the media was making it seem like India was afraid of playing at the Gabba and hence they did not want to travel to Queensland. Describing the Aussie media as the “12th man”, Chopra, in his latest YouTube video, said that the hosts were trying to give a “chickening out” image to Team India

• Ajinkya Rahane
• Cheteshwar Pujara
• India vs Australia 2020
• R Ashwin
• ricky ponting
• Sydney Test