CricketNews

“Cheteshwar Pujara has tremendous concentration and plays close to his body,” observes Sussex teammate and Pakistani wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan

Cheteshwar Pujara and Mohammad Rizwan are playing for Sussex in the county championship this year

The Pakistani wicketkeeper batsman Mohammad Rizwan has shared his experience of playing alongside the veteran Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara for Sussex County Cricket Club in the ongoing county championship.

Rizwan and Pujara, both have been signed by Sussex and although Rizwan hasn’t made any major impact with the bat for the club so far, Pujara is the leading run scorer in the second division of the championship and has already piled four hundreds.

Mohammad Rizwan was recently in an exclusive conversation with Cricwick.com where he was asked if he has learnt anything from Pujara’s batting or if Pujara has learnt anything from him, Rizwan said what he has seen in Pujara is that he has got a tremendous level of concentration.

According to Rizwan, while playing for the Pakistan cricket team or while playing in the Pakistani domestic circuit, he has seen that level of concentration only in Younis Khan and Fawad Alam. And the second thing that he has noticed in Cheteshwar Pujara is he plays close to his body, which is something he is trying to learn.

It’s hard for all format players to play like Cheteshwar Pujara: Mohammad Rizwan

Rizwan emphasized that for all format players like him, it’s slightly difficult to get into that zone of always playing close to the body because in white ball cricket, you have to show a lot more urgency and play a lot more shots. You can’t always play close to your body in white ball cricket.

But, in red ball cricket, it’s a different scenario because the ball moves around quite a lot as compared to white ball and Cheteshwar Pujara is so successful in test cricket and also in county cricket because he doesn’t try to play a lot of deliveries away from his body at all.

Apart from Rizwan and Pujara, the other international test cricketer that Sussex CCC has in their team right now is the England fast bowler Ollie Robinson.

Abhishek

I write a bit on cricket and I am more interested in technical and tactical side of the game, rather than bravado.
Back to top button