Rohit Sharma had recently announced his retirement from Test cricket
Cheteshwar Pujara is a stubborn man in the middle. The Saurashtra batter has built his reputation by putting a price on his wicket in red-ball cricket. The refusal to give up his wicket has fetched him 103 Test caps, 7,195 runs and 19 hundreds.
Pujara’s ability to bat for a long time had played a big part in India’s big wins in West Indies, Australia and South Africa. Former Indian Test captain Rohit Sharma revealed another side of Pujara’s stubbornness during their tour with India A in 2012 which led to the duo being mobbed by people in West Indies.
During the launch of Pujara’s wife’s book ‘The Diary Of A Cricketer’s Wife’, Rohit asked Pujara to elaborate on the incident from 2012 when he replied:
“I’m a vegetarian, so we were looking for a vegetarian meal at night and it was in TNT (Trinidad and Tobago) where we went out at 11 in the evening. So, we didn’t find the meal but when we were walking back, I was mobbed. I can’t tell you in detail about it but that’s the story he’s referring to.”
Rohit immediately added to the anecdote by saying:
“Moral of the story, sometimes he can be stubborn. We told him, we warned him, don’t go in the night. Don’t go outside after 9pm, this is the West Indies.”
The Mumbaikar also remembered how getting Pujara out was such a difficult task, team meetings used to revolve around that one topic since their Under-14 days.
“I still remember, team meetings only revolved around him (on) how to get him out, and if we don’t get him out, probably we’d lose the game. All I remember is that when I used to go to the ground, when I was 14-years-old, and when I came back in the evening, the color of my face would be completely different,” Rohit said.
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“My mom used to ask me ‘You looked different when you left for the match and after you are back, you look like something else.’ I used to tell ‘Mom, there is this batsman called Cheteshwar Pujara. He keeps on batting for three days and we keep fielding during the entire time,’” Rohit added.
Rohit had recently called time on his Test career following a lean run with the bat. The 38-year-old has made 67 Test appearances and scored 4,307 runs at an average of 40.57 which included 12 hundreds and 18 fifties.
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