Point to prove on Bangladesh tour for Cheteshwar Pujara - Can he rebuild the 'Indian Wall'?

Cheteshwar Pujara of Yorkshire during day three of the LV County Championship Division One match between Yorkshire and Warwickshire

Cheteshwar Pujara has arguably got the best batting technique in the current Indian line up. He has the ability to play long innings, which is a prerequisite for succeeding at the highest level. He has scored 6 hundreds till date and four of them are 150+ scores and two are double hundreds.

Shikhar Dhawan spoke highly of his teammate in an interview recently. "Consistency wise”, he said, “I learnt a lot from Pujara". However, it is with the consistency that Pujara has had trouble in recent times. Whereas earlier he would wait hours for the one loose delivery, recently his weakness have been exposed on foreign tours – playing impatient shots, not being alert enough and so on.

Struggle in 2014

2014 wasn't a good year for India's No.3. He couldn't do justice to his talent in the last three series in New Zealand, England and Australia. He has only two 50+ scores over this period – an unflattering record for who was once touted to be the next Indian wall.

Pujara's performance in the last three series

Opposition	Matches	Innings	Runs	Highest Score	Average	100	50
New Zealand	2	4	60	23	15.00	0	0
England	5	10	222	55	22.20	0	1
Australia	3	6	201	73	33.50	0	1

Pujara got starts but could only manage scores in the 20s and 30s. His back foot play was found wanting. After some abysmal performances, he was dropped from the squad for the Sydney Test. Pujara still has a very good career average of 47, which reflects how wonderfully he performed at the beginning of his career.

He joined Yorkshire this season and scored 264 runs at an average of 52.8. The happy news is that he scored a brilliant 133* in his last innings for the English county team. Perhaps he has slowly started to regain his mojo?

Bangladesh Series – Opportunity to shine

India's Bangladesh tour will start from June 10. India will play a one-off Test and 3 ODIs. In all likelihood, Pujara will be back in the playing eleven. The Test match will be vital for the Saurashtra batsman and he has to prove without doubt that he is the right man to step in the shoes of great Rahul Dravid.

Bangladesh has a relatively weak attack as compared to Australia and New Zealand. Also, conditions in Bangladesh are not very dissimilar to India. If only Pujara can hold his nerve and play his natural game, he will surely be back in flying colours – the ‘Wall’ on way to being rebuilt.