Australian batsmen can learn a valuable lesson from Cheteshwar Pujara’s patient innings

Cheteshwar Pujara’s outstanding ton was an innings of intelligence, patience and control, everything that is missing from Australia’s batsmen, writes MIKE COLMAN.

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Australia’s player of the series against India became obvious after the first day of the opening Test in Adelaide.

Cheteshwar Pujara.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Pujara doesn’t play for Australia, but his outstanding knock of 123 off 246 balls in furnace conditions was far more valuable to the future of Australian Test cricket than anything anyone in a baggy green cap will manage over the summer.

We can only hope the Aussies are smart enough to realise it.

Throughout the day, commentators spoke of Pujara’s one-man stand as an “old-fashioned Test innings”.

By that they meant that it was intelligent, patient and controlled.

It was also unselfish. Even as he approached a well-deserved century Pujara put his team ahead of his scrapbook, refusing easy singles in order to keep the strike away from the Indian tail.

From start to finish it was a textbook example of Test batting. Tough, workmanlike and, in the eyes of the latest generation of cricketers and watchers, boring as brussels sprouts.

Cheteshwar Pujara gives a Test batting masterclass against Australia. Picture: AFP

Unlike Usman Khawaja’s catch or Pat Cummins’ run-out, Pujara’s innings won’t feature in any YouTube “best-ever” video, but Australian cricket can’t base its rebirth on freakish one-off plays.

It needs the sort of blue-collar, roll up the sleeves, put in a hard day’s work-type effort that Pujara displayed in his six-and-a-half hours at the crease.

The kind that cricketers who played in the days of “old-fashioned Test innings” have been crying out for.

One of the most passionate pleas for a return to the old-school virtues of batting came from former Test spinner Gavin Robertson after Australia’s embarrassing collapse against Pakistan in October.

Robertson spoke of bowling against the likes of Mark ­Taylor and Andrew Hilditch and thinking, “is this bloke ever going to make a mistake?”

“I remember playing in Shield matches against Queensland and when Martin Love was batting you’d say to yourself, ‘how are we ever going to get this bloke out?’

“These days we are watching Test cricket with a team that are playing with risk and hope.”

Shaun Marsh threw away his wicket. Picture: AP

Not that it is just the Australian batsmen who seem to have sold their souls to the big hitting and massive pay packets of the shortened versions of the game.

On day one of the Test, Allan Border was incensed by the inexplicable dismissal of India’s Rohit Sharma, caught in the outfield by Marcus Harris after being given not out when caught over the boundary by Harris playing the exact same shot on the previous ball.

“If I was his captain I’d be going straight up to him when he got back into the dressingroom and saying, ‘mate do you want to play Test cricket or not?’ said Border, one of the gustiest and most uncompromising players ever to hold a bat.

Which makes you wonder what Border would have said to the likes of Shaun Marsh, Peter Handscomb and Aaron Finch on Friday after they had fallen cheaply to shots that were so far from what their team required as to be ridiculous.

Originally published as Australian batsmen can learn a valuable lesson from Cheteshwar Pujara’s patient innings