da heads bet： Cheteshwar Pujara’s century was proof that at times in Test match play, survival need not mean mere tentativeness but the ability to wait for simpler things, like the loose ball

da bet nacional： Sharda Ugra at SSC29-Aug-20153:02

Plan was to just rotate strike – Pujara

Who knows what Cheteshwar Pujara’s century at the SSC will mean once this game, and with it the series, is done? For his own career, Pujara will know this innings will be a reminder, and a ringing one, that words that his team’s governors use so often – “intent,” “aggression” and “fearlessness” – can in fact take on many different forms. One of them would be like Pujara’s hundred that held up and held together, like an industrial adhesive, India’s wobbly first innings.The day belonged as much to Dhammika Prasad. Every time India appeared settled, Prasad would come in to, at the very least, scatter intentions if not break partnerships. Every time India lost ground with the fall of a wicket, Pujara helped them regain it. His first Test for India in eight months, his first hundred in 22 innings since December 2013, that too as an opener, on a singing surface that had surprise, sting, bounce and turn.If the team’s batting coach Sanjay Bangar had worried about his wards’ ability to deal with unprecedented lateral movement, Pujara’s unbeaten 135 provided a live demonstration of how it could be handled. And gave proof that at times in Test match play, survival need not be mere tentativeness, it could include the endurance to wait for simpler things, like the loose ball.On Friday morning itself, Pujara had been willing to scratch and claw his way out of uncertainty and circumspection with the pitch decking about madly. Saturday morning was met with bright sunshine and Prasad, bowling his best spell in the series so far.Never mind the sunshine, it was the surface and the bowling which made it a Pujara kind of batting day: it demanded patience, concentration and both skill and anticipation to counter movement and to kill the nicks with soft hands. The wicket had reminded him, “of playing in South Africa where I had scored 153 on a tough wicket. I knew that if played with soft hands, the ball would not carry to the slips. Initially it was really important.” Pujara’s play was best described by how he handled the start and end of sessions: no rush, no fuss, with an iron-fisted grip over the situation rather than the temptations offered by the scorecard.Against Prasad, who gave Virat Kohli a thorough working over, Pujara eked out miserable singles when he had to, going five overs without a run and managing 12 off the first 60 balls he faced. Pujara was beaten by a few, but rarely was he rushed, nor did he overly try to dominate; it is not his game. It was against the spinners, he calculated, that the clock could be kept moving. There was use of wrist and control in his shot-making and the willingness to run the hard three when needed.Nearing lunch, Pujara crossed his fifty in a manner so rudimentary, with a single to deep midwicket, and a brief wave of the bat, like a pause to ask for some water. On both sides of the lunch break, Pujara was separated from his partners by Prasad returning to get his rewards of an inspired morning of disciplined seam bowling.First was Rohit Sharma, whom many think of as Pujara’s alter ego and his rival for a single spot in the batting line-up. Rohit looked effortless, fluid almost in turning the strike over, when compared to Pujara’s precise and deliberate movements, and fell just before the break, like it had happened after a hard-earned 79 at the P Sara Oval just before stumps. Then first ball after lunch, Stuart Binny was trapped lbw to leave Prasad on a hat-trick. “I think he [Dhammika] bowled brilliantly today. He kept his line. His plan was simple — to bowl on the fourth stump and let the pitch do the work,” Pujara said.Pujara called the SSC track one of the toughest pitches he had played on, particularly against the new ball. “It felt like you can’t play any shots and you can’t get away. You just have to [keep] surviving and keep defending and when you get a loose ball, you just convert it. But I was patient enough, I kept my calm and kept rotating the strike, which allowed me to settle down and then once I was in, on any wicket I think I can play the way I always do.”His demolition of Tharindu Kaushal was surgical: before he came on, Pujara had scored 32 runs off 116 balls. Three loose balls in that over were dispatched to the boundary; after that, his turnover was 103 runs off the next 161 balls. With the ball getting softer, Pujara pulled out his favourite hook shot, against Nuwan Pradeep, off his face. Herath then got him into a spot of bother just before tea when the century drew close. The ball had turned square on a couple of occasions, beaten Pujara all ends up; in Herath’s next over, with men around the bat and everyone trying to block singles, Pujara resolutely defended four balls in a row, like he had just come in and was trying to get a measure of Herath and the conditions.But he was on 99, and on the fifth ball of that over, he made a hairy run for it. Pujara’s sprint was fuelled by something like the want and hunger for a big Test score again, which had broke through his abstinence and control all day. He completed the single and took off his helmet instantly, to breathe and shake off the weight of the waiting off his shoulders and to grin – in joy and relief.This was a century that came with a number of conditions: that Pujara was in as a stop-gap role because of injuries to the other openers knowing that he did not really fit into a tight batting line-up. After the day’s play, he came in to the media briefing looking like he was someone else, like he always did, like the old Pujara, settled and composed.”When I went in, I just had to go and bat and play my natural game,” he said. “Obviously, had I always been thinking that if I think about all the stuff that had been happening and I am not batting at my regular position and this is the last opportunity that might be there and so on, I don’t think I will be able to go and perform. I had been working hard, the best thing I need to do is focus on what I have to do and the plan was very simple – try and rotate the strike and see through the new ball, and once I am set obviously I can play my shots and build a partnership with other players.”It was Pujara’s century partnership with the ebullient and risk-taking Amit Mishra that gave India heart and legs in this Test. “He [Mishra] batted really well which has allowed us to put on 292 on the board at the moment,” Pujara said. “He faced the second new ball which was really important because had we lost a wicket then things would have been very different.” Like they would have been for him, had he not done the stuff of the best kind of openers – seen two new balls off on a demanding wicket and scored runs that could count.India have been given a chance in this Test because Cheteshwar Pujara made the most of the one he had been given.