Last Updated: June 09, 2023, 15:06 IST
London, United Kingdom (UK)
Cheteshwar Pujara lost his wicket due to an error in judgement
Fans were not so happy with Pujara, who has been India’s top performer in red-ball cricket in recent years, was dismissed due to a poor shot selection
Indian Test specialist Chetetshwar Pujara faced the wrath of angry cricket fans for giving away his precious wicket to Cameron Green on the second day of the ongoing World Test Championship (WTC) Final at The Oval. India lost their openers early in response to Australia’s colossal 469. Cheteshwar Pujara, who enjoyed a terrific stint for Surrey in County championship, was expected to hold the fort at one for India. But unfortunately, he judged a delivery wrongly and got knocked over.
Pujara was bowled out in a very similar way as Shubman Gill was. Former India head coach Ravi Shastri seeing the similarity between Pujara’s and Gill’s dismissal stated on Star Sports that the young batter has enough time to learn from his mistake but Pujara should be disappointed with his dismissal as he is an experienced player.
Ravi Shastri, “Shubman Gill will learn, but Cheteshwar Pujara should be disappointed by that dismissal. He’s an experienced player”. pic.twitter.com/yR0g8YyorE— CricketGully (@thecricketgully) June 9, 2023
Meanwhile, the fans were not please with Pujara’s way of throwing away his wicket. It was also touted that he had been playing county cricket all this time while his teammates were busy with the IPL. Here’s how the dejected fans reacted on social media:
Temperament! Pujara’s dismissal made it clear, even months of county cricket wont help if you don’t have the temperament to play knockouts.— Pankaj (@maplebrowney) June 8, 2023
What’s the point of making pujara play County cricket when he can’t perform when it mattered#INDvAUS— Tushar Gupta (@TusharGToshi) June 8, 2023
Bradman of Pujara county #WTC23— Prashant Mudgal 🕉️ (@theantagonist25) June 8, 2023
Pujara can go back to plundering second tier English bowling. We’ll pick him again because of his county record!— TRVivek (@trvivek) June 8, 2023
After playing 2seasons of County cricket, scored more than 10 centuries here is Mr. Cheteshwar Pujara @cheteshwar1 bowled out by a part time medium pacer on national Duty.What to expect from others who r playing IPL last two months. Time to rebuild Indian Test Team #BCCI #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/Cmaij6pCG8— Sangram Das🇮🇳🇮🇳 (@Sangram22252264) June 8, 2023
The Indian supporters were extremely baffled over India’s batting as the likes of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli got dismissed early without contributing much to the team score.
Ravindra Jadeja (48 off 51 balls) and Ajinkya Rahane (29 batting off 71) offered hope to the partisan Indian supporters at The Oval with a 71-run stand off 100 balls before the former fell to Nathan Lyon 20 minutes before the close of play.
India were reeling at 151 for five at stumps in response to Australia’s first innings score of 469, trailing by 318 runs. Credit should also go to the relentless Australian pace trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Scott Boland, who got much more out of The Oval surface than their Indian counterparts.
(With Agency Inputs)