India’s ODI captain Rohit Sharma recently praised veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara while recounting a humorous memory from his early cricketing days. Speaking at the launch event for Pujara’s wife’s book, the 38-year-old shared how team discussions often revolved around finding ways to get Pujara out in red-ball cricket, a task that proved incredibly difficult.
Rohit fondly recalled how his mother would question the change in his facial color after intense matches against Pujara’s side, as the gritty batter would relentlessly test his patience at the crease.
“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 colour of my face would be completely different.”
He further continued:
“He would bat for the entire day, while we fielded under the sun for two to three days straight. I still recall my mother asking me several times how I looked different when I left home to play and then looked changed again after being away for a week or ten days.”
”I used to tell her, ‘Mom, what can I do? There’s this batsman named Cheteshwar Pujara who has been batting for three days.’ That was the very first impression we got of him.”
Rohit Sharma Reveals Teammates Used To Tease Pujara About His Running Style
Rohit Sharma praised Cheteshwar Pujara for his remarkable career, highlighting the resilience he showed by overcoming ACL injuries in both knees early on. Widely regarded as one of India’s finest Test batters, the 37-year-old has amassed 7,195 runs at an average of 43.60 across 103 matches.
In contrast, Rohit, who recently announced his retirement from Test cricket, concluded his red-ball journey with 4,301 runs in 67 appearances.
“(It was) such a big injury (and) such a bad injury. Both his ACL were gone. For any cricketer, leave alone if you are not an athlete or not playing any sport, for a sportsman it’s very, very tough if you lose both your ACL. We used to tease him about his running technique and all that but he managed to play more than 100 Test matches for India after that, a lot of credit goes to him for how he managed it,” said Rohit.
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