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'Almost scared to play a shot': Allan Border criticises Cheteshwar Pujara
Former Australia skipper Allan Border has also criticised Pujara’s innings as he said that the Indian batsman was almost too scared to play a shot at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Cheteshwar Pujara scored his first fifty of the four-match Test against Australia on Saturday. It took 5 innings for Pujara to hit his stride as hit a 176-ball 50 in the third Test in Sydney to help India score 244 in the first innings. But the pace of his innings has been criticised by a lot of former cricketers. Pujara had a strike rate of 28 during his innings before he was dismissed by Pat Cummins.
Former Australia skipper Allan Border has also criticised Pujara’s innings as he said that the Indian batsman was almost too scared to play a shot at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
"He [Pujara] is almost scared to play a shot, isn't he? He is playing to survive rather than looking to score," Allan Border told foxsports.com.au.
"He's not had quite the same impact this series in that he's taken so long to score his runs, it's like he's stagnated at the crease and it has had a bit of a ripple effect through the Indian batting. They can't seem to get on top of Australia's bowling."
Border also lauded the Australia bowling attack.
"Credit where credit is due, the bowling has been very good and Australia haven't allowed them to get away.
"That's half the battle as well, the guy's been hard to get out but if the scoreboard is not moving, eventually you get your rewards."
Ricky Ponting wasn't happy with Pujara's batting. The former Australian skipper was doing a Q&A session on Twitter and it was then that a fan asked him about Pujara's approach.
Answering the question, Ponting replied: "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."
