India vs England | Pitch looks slightly easier to bat, says Cheteshwar Pujara

In the first innings, Indian batsmen were totally unsuccessful to stand and mount a score in order to gain a lead. However, Cheteshwar Pujara came in to bat and changed the picture for Team India. Even though other batsmen failed, Pujara stood strong and occupied the crease with the support of the tail ending batsmen and managed to score a century to gain a small lead of 27 runs. English batting line-up seemed to look loose as they were failing to put up a good score and this made India believe that the game was in their grip. This was only until Joe Root, scored 48 runs and Jos Buttler, who scored 69 runs, managed to mount the score as England were at 260/8 in the second innings, which means that they have a lead of 233 runs at stumps on day 3. 

Even though it's going to be a mammoth task for India to chase such a score, Pujara believes that India can still make it happen. 

“I don’t think it was a tough day for us. Looking at the pitch, it has slowed down a bit. Looks like it’s slightly easier to bat, and maybe we have got a lot of experience playing in such conditions back home [which is something] our batsmen would have realised,” Pujara said after day three. 

Even though the English team seemed to look a bit weak in the beginning, but players like Jos Buttler, Joe Root, and Ben Stokes played in the end, raising the score to 260-8. R Ashwin had to go through a little bit of criticism as he failed to exploit the rough areas on the pitch. However, Pujara spoke in his favour by saying that he bowled in the right regions and doesn't think that he had a bad day.

“I don’t think he (Ashwin) had a bad day. He didn’t get too many wickets but he still kept on bowling in the right areas. Sometimes as a bowler you do have such days when you’re bowling well but you might not end up picking too many wickets.So someone like him … I think he is a clever bowler and he has done really well for us throughout the domestic season and even overseas, so I don’t think he has bowled badly at all,” Pujara argued. 

It was the lack of partnerships in the middle order that had seen India slip from 161-3 to 195-8 before Pujara led a revival with Sharma and Bumrah. Pujara said the batsmen could have done better in the first innings.

“We started off well in the first innings but we lost too many wickets in the middle phase. If we had batted well, we would have got 100 or 150-run lead, but that is something in the past. But all the batsmen have realised what they need to do and I think we will put up a good show in the second innings and bowl them out early tomorrow,” he said. 

Pujara also mentioned that the pitch seems to have slowed down and become something similar to pitches in India and therefore it shall get a bit easier for Indian batsmen to play in such conditions.

“Looking at this pitch, I think it always slows down a bit, but we have played on such wickets in India that tend to slow down as the game progresses,” Pujara said. “And even the bounce is low, so most of our batters are used to such bounce and that could be in our favour in the second innings,” he said 

However, Pujara thinks that India will still have to be wary of Moeen Ali, who picked up 5-63 in the first innings, including two wickets in two balls when he sent back Ashwin and Shami.

“I think when he bowled in the first innings, the wicket was a little quicker and some of our batters could have batted a bit better. But he is a good bowler – I am not trying to take any credit away from the way he bowled, but we still should have batted better against him and in the second innings batters will have a better game plan against Moeen,” Pujara concluded. 

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