Does Pujara's approach harm India?

A look at what he did at Sydney and what impact he has had over the years

At one point on Day 3 of the Sydney Test, Pujara was batting 16 off 100 deliveries. Twitter was abuzz with discussions about how Pujara’s strike rate and how it puts pressure on the other batsman. The general public always likes a stroke maker more than a batsman who takes his time to get going, but there were many commentators and journalists who also seemed to agree about this today.

Here are a couple of examples:

Boria Majumdar @BoriaMajumdar

Too defensive from Pujara. He will get one unplayable deliver from a quality attack if he keeps standing there without scoring. It’s about scoring runs. Allowing Australia to take control.

Then there was Ricky Ponting:

Ricky Ponting AO @RickyPonting

I don't think it was the right approach, I think he needed to be a bit more proactive with his scoring rate because I felt it was putting too much pressure on his batting partners

DK @MaiKhelega

@RickyPonting How do you rate Pujara's initial batting- 16 of 100 balls at such a great surface to bat on? Is that a right approach here?

So I decided to look at this specific innings in more details to start with, and then look at how him batting longer helps other batsmen batting after him:

1. His knock at Sydney - 50 off 176 balls

Pujara walked in to bat in the 28th over of the innings when Rohit Sharma was dismissed for 26. He had not even played 20 deliveries when the other set batsman in Shubman Gill was dismissed. This was during yet another Pat Cummins spell where the quickie bowled 4 overs, 3 maidens, giving away just the 1 run. Pujara was beaten twice in this spell and the ball kept low on 2-3 occasions as well. India’s only chance in the test would have been by batting all of Day 3 and taking a lead. For that, they needed Pujara and Rahane to be not out. Moreover, there was less than an hour of play, so being defensive to play out until stumps was a logical decision. Pujara ended with 9 off 50-odd deliveries.

On Day 3, Rahane and Pujara added 30 runs in the first 9 overs. Apart from a half volley from Starc (to Rahane) and one aggressive shot against Lyon (also Rahane), runs were hard to come. It wasn’t just Pujara, even Rahane only managed 22 off 70 in spite of those boundaries. At this point, Pujara was batting 13 off 81. Hazlewood who came on at this point had been accurate (like he almost always is) and Pujara managed a few runs when he drifted on the leg but was mostly kept waiting by some very accurate bowling.

Lyon had been bowling at 88.5kmph today, did not allow Pujara to dance down the track as he often does to spin. To my recollection, the first chance he got was the 62nd over and that’s when Pujara capitalized by scoring 2 boundaries. Older ball doing less allowed Pujara to score quicker in this as he got 26 off 44 balls (after being 16 of 100) to finish on 42 off 144 at lunch. All in all, there wasn’t really a point he got half volleys that he couldn’t dispatch or deliberately kept dead-batting the ball. The field and bowling were set to his strengths and he was playing the waiting game successfully until that ripper got him after 50. So I personally don’t agree with the whole ‘intent’ argument. Could he have tried a different approach, sure? But this is the approach that has got him runs in 2018 (and throughout his career), so it’s not like it an unproven method.

2. Impact of Pujara batting longer on Virat Kohli in away tests

Looking past the knock at Sydney, Pujara is playing his 80th test match and his strike rate is 45.8 in this time. Considering he averages lower as well as scores slower away - I decided to look at how it impacts Kohli’s numbers. Out of those 80 tests, 73 have featured Virat Kohli and 35 of these have been abroad. In these 35 tests, Kohli has batted 63 times, and depending on the over # when Kohli walked in to bat, his average and strike rate are listed below:

In other words, when Kohli walks in to bat in 30th over or later, he scores 8 runs more on average than when he walks into bat in the 10th over. One might assume that when he is coming to bat after the 30th over, the bowling attack is ordinary but Kohli’s strike rate doesn’t seem to change a lot meaning that may not necessarily be true. In general, Kohli’s average seems to improve the later he comes to bat. And this should hardly be a surprise to anyone - after all the ball older (likely doing less), the bowlers are more tired. This helps every #4 from Sachin Tendulkar to Steve Smith.

And that’s where the craft of Pujara comes in. In test cricket, the best batsmen of the team often bat at 4 and the responsibility of the top order is to give the team a good start and therefore giving the rest a platform. His defensive approach doesn’t help his average (or strike rate), it definitely makes it easier for the batsmen after him and gives them the best chance to succeed.