“The sword was hanging over him, which wasn’t correct” - Harbhajan Singh questions criticism of Cheteshwar Pujara 

Former Team India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has termed the constant criticism of Cheteshwar Pujara over his poor batting form as unfair. Without naming anyone, he said that there were others in the team who were also performing badly along with Pujara, but the pressure always seemed to be greater on the No. 3 Test batter.

Pujara, 34, was dropped from the Test team for the two-match series against Sri Lanka at home in March following a lean patch with the bat. He earned a recall for the Birmingham Test against England following a superb county stint with Sussex, during which he scored 720 runs in five games. The defiant batter had an average of 120 and scored four hundreds, two of them being double tons.

Throwing his weight behind Pujara, Harbhajan pointed out that the experienced batter has delivered for India more often than not. Speaking to Sportskeeda, he said:

“Pujara has always contributed. When we won in Australia, he played a major role in India’s win. Even in England, he anchored the innings from one end and took the responsibility of seeing off the new ball. But the sword was still hanging over him. It was almost like drop him from the team as the rest are doing alright, which wasn’t correct according to me."

The Saurashtra batter last turned out for India during the three-match Test series in South Africa. He struggled against a strong Proteas bowling line-up, scoring only 124 runs at an average of 20.67.

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“It was good of Pujara to play county” - Harbhajan Singh

Admitting that the standard of bowling in county cricket cannot be compared to that of international cricket, Harbhajan credited Pujara for turning out for Sussex. He explained:

“It is important to keep playing cricket, which Pujara does. He played well in English conditions. Of course, in county cricket bowlers might not be of the same standard as international cricket, but you do face a couple of quality bowlers. It was good of Pujara to play county and he displayed fine form.”

The No.3 Test batter has not scored a century in the longer format of the game for India since registering three figures during the New Year Test against Australia in Sydney in 2019.

According to reports, he might open the innings in the Birmingham Test if skipper Rohit Sharma is ruled out due to COVID-19.

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