Cheteshwar Pujara reveals how Rahul Dravid's advice helped him

Pujara is enjoying his comeback in the team

Cheteshwar Pujara has given credit to former Indian captain and now India A coach Rahul Dravid for his grand comeback to the national team, reports TOI.

When India posted 201 runs target for South Africa in the Mohali Test, Pujara was the highest scorer for the home team with his 77 runs. His timing of the ball and coordination with his teammates received applauses from the experts.

He revealed that Dravid helped him after he was dropped from the team during Australia tour. Dravid told him about a employing a shorter stance.

"I have the measurement of what kind of stance I had and the distance between the feet. Now I have a slightly shorter stance and the distance is slightly less (between the two feet). I discussed it with my father (former first class player Arvind Pujara) and Rahul Bhai before the Sri Lanka series and came down to the conclusion as to what I wanted to do," Pujara said.

He elaborated more on employing the new technique and said: "Every stance has its advantages and disadvantages. Of players' comfort and kind of technique they have. So each individual is different. Ultimately, most important thing about stance is the comfort."

Pujara made was called back for the Sri Lankan Test series and he didn't disappoint the selectors. The Rajkot batsman scored a prolific 145 against the Lankan team when other big names in the team failed and eventually awarded Man-of-the-Match for the same.

Before the call-up, Pujara enjoyed a short stint cricket in the county at Yorkshire where he excelled with his excellent century against Hamshire.

The 27-year-old cricketer said that the bad phase is gone and now he's back in form.

"I never thought that I will not be able to return to international cricket (when dropped from XI). Because, I had a good start and I scored a lot of runs in domestic cricket. So I always had that confidence. There was a time where I did not score runs as expected but that phase is gone and now I am back in form.

"If you look at all cricketers, they go through a certain phase where they don't do as well as they are expected to but once you start believing yourself and working hard on your game, scoring runs in any game domestic or club game, then you get confidence," he concluded.

India is leading the four Test match series against the South African team by 1-0. The second match will be played in Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium starting from November 14.