Cheteshwar Pujara, India’s top scorer in the Lord’s Test, is getting flak for not being aggressive enough in the latter part of the match. Jadeja was not out at 61 after facing 181 balls but England got the other 10 Indian batsmen out and won by 22 runs and took a 2-1 lead in the series. Even the English players praised Jadeja’s effort but some experts pointed out a small issue with his strategy. Anil Kumble, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravichandran Ashwin and Sourav Ganguly felt Jadeja could have been more aggressive at Lord’s especially against Shoaib Malik. Pujara is not happy with the criticism Jadeja is getting.
Pujara told the Indian Express that Jadeja couldn’t have scored faster because the ball was soft and the pitch was slow. He thought Jadeja probably thought the tailenders were batting well and the team was close to the total and he would have taken more risks once they were closer. Pujara felt Jadeja was batting well but it was hard to score runs on that pitch.
Pujara said the only thing Jadeja could have done better was to try to score down the ground because there was a gap between mid-off and cover. As the ball got softer it was hard for Jadeja to find boundaries even by playing down the ground. He seemed to take a single on the 5th or 6th ball of the over to keep Bumrah or Siraj from facing too many balls. Pujara thinks Jadeja has improved a lot especially when batting abroad which should be praised.
Pujara said Jadeja has improved in the last five years especially abroad and has been working hard. He also does his net practice on match days and has improved when playing pace.
Pujara said Jadeja used to have trouble converting good starts into big scores at the top level but you can’t score 300 in first-class cricket without skills. He needs to convert his starts into big scores at the international level. Pujara who has played with Jadeja in Ranji Trophy for Saurashtra was impressed with how Jadeja handled the seamers in English conditions.Pujara said Jadeja can now handle both seam and spin. He was a good player of spin but not as strong against seamers which is not the case anymore.