Sri Lanka vs India, 1st Test: Cheteshwar Pujara opens up after his century

It was another good day out for the Indian cricket team who performed exceptionally well in the second day of the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle.

After Shikhar Dhawan's exceptional knock of 190 on the first day, Cheteshwar Pujara's knock almost went unnoticed. He scored his 12th century of his career, his second over last three matches and his fourth over the past year.

He continues to be Mr. dependable of the Indian side and has cemented his place at no. 3 in the batting line-up.

He was ruthless against the Sri Lankan bowlers and scored a well-crafted knock of 153 off 265 deliveries with thirteen fours to his name.

Speaking at the post day press conference, Pujara spoke about what keeps his motivation high and what keeps him going.

"I think, whenever I play cricket whether its international level or first-class level I enjoy this game so I don't need any extra motivation because I love playing this game. I love my batting so whenever I get the opportunity to score runs or do something on the field I always like that challenge and I'm always well prepared. Before any series or any game, I trust my preparation and work hard on it. So, whenever there is a challenge, I work hard for it," said Pujara at the press conference.

Apart from Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, and Ravichandran Ashwin chipped in with worthy contributions with Rahane and Pandya scoring half centuries.

India ended with a massive total of 600 on the board and followed that up with a good bowling performance as well.

Umesh Yadav had got India off to the perfect start dismissing Dimuth Karunaratne in the 2nd over of the match. The Sri Lankan batsmen fought back with a 61 run partnership for the 2nd wicket but Shami struck twice in one over to put Sri Lanka in a spot of bother.

However, Tharanga and Angelo Mathews led the revival once again and put on a 57 run partnership for the fourth wicket. Both the batsmen were looking in fine touch with Tharanga scoring a half century as well.

However, a bizarre dismissal led to Tharanga's dismissal with him not getting run-out due to not grounding his bat.

At the end of the day, the Islanders ended at 154-5, 446 runs behind the visitors with the danger of being forced to follow.

At the press conference, Pujara went on to speak about what India did right against Sri Lanka.

"If you start well, it always puts opposition on the backfoot. When you are playing international level, you still expect them to fight back and we won’t take them lightly. We would like to stick to what we want to do and that was the reason for our success in the home season," said Pujara.

"We stuck to our strengths, stuck to things which we wanted to and excelled as a team. When you start off well, the opposition is always on the backfoot. As Indian batsmen, we have enough exposure to spin in the domestic circuit. All our batsmen are batting well. Even lower-order like Ashwin, Saha, Hardik, all of them can bat well. We all bat well against spinners," he concluded.