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'I call him the beast. But he and Murali Vijay aren't celebrated enough': Ashwin ahead of India star's amazing milestone
Veteran Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Tuesday highlighted the names of two India greats who "aren't celebrated enough", one of whom he calls "the beast" and is slated to complete the milestone of 100 Test appearances for India.
In a cricket-crazy nation of 1.4 billion people, you need to be the best in the game, for a consistent period of time to break into the Indian cricket team. The fight gets ten fold harder when to break into the final XI given the neck-and-neck battle for every single slot. And when a player makes a debut, he is already a household name in India. However, the degree of fame or the amount a player is celebrated among the ardent fans is often not the same. Some players rise to being superstars in India like yesteryear heroes in Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid and present day players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Veteran Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Tuesday highlighted the names of two India greats who "aren't celebrated enough", one of whom he calls "the beast" and is slated to complete the milestone of 100 Test appearances for India.
When the Rohit-led Indian side takes on Australia in the second match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, Cheteshwar Pujara will be playing his 100th Test for India. He will become the 12th Indian to reach the milestone and only the second active Indian player to the feat after Kohli (105 Tests).
Ashwin, in his column for ESPNCricinfo, however feels that much like former India cricketer Murali Vijay, Pujara isn't celebrated enough.
"M Vijay, according to me the greatest opener for India outside of Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag, and Puji are quite similar in that they haven't been celebrated enough. They also had some of the most hilarious arguments. They used to do the most difficult job in Test cricket - play out the new ball in testing conditions, as we tend to need to do whenever we go abroad - so it is par for the course to have a few eccentricities emerge from that kind of partnership," he said.
Ashwin was all of praise for Pujara's 'stubbornness', a character attribute which he feels helped him break one of the toughest and fiercest bowling attacks, as he exemplified with Pat Cummins his spell against the India No.3 in the 2018/19 series Down Under.
"Pat Cummins bowls good ball after good ball, changing the angles, trying a bouncer, trying a sucker ball, but all he gets from Puji is the leave or the dead defence. Actually I don't recall thinking Puji had a great defence when I first saw him, but his stubbornness is such that he has broken down the best of the attacks with his defence," he said.
"Most batters add to their game when they are successful or cut out some elements when they are failing, but Puji keeps trusting his method. You can't convince him to change. I used to use a Tamil nickname for him with Shankar Basu, our previous trainer: Mirugam, the beast. Just like a beast focuses single-mindedly on its prey, Puji focuses on batting," he added.
