The way I was batting, I am really happy: Cheteshwar Pujara

It feels that Cheteshwar Pujara has now made it a habit of unmusically stitching together rugged knocks that would bail India out of immediate jeopardy and steer them to safety. Such was the story of the Indian cricket team in the first session of the opening day of the Test series against Bangladesh as they lost their top three in very quick succession, leaving open a massive void.

However, Pujara stepped up and joined the likes of Rishabh Pant first, and then Shreyas Iyer, to help India survive the early scare and eventually turn the tide in their favor. He put up a well-constructed 90 from 203 balls before Taijul Islam would barrel through his defenses to snuff out the warring resistance. Talking at a conference after the day’s play, Pujara said, “The way I was batting, I am really happy.”

Pujara talked at length about the kind of surface that they are playing on, stating, “It’s not an easy pitch. Sometimes we focus a lot on the three-figure marks, but here we needed those runs and the partnership was important. It was a good ball that got me. Every ball was not turning and that is a more dangerous situation. It was a nice challenge to have. You can’t relax on this pitch and at the same time the loose ball had to be punished because you can’t bat time.”

Sharing a quick insight on the score on the board at the end of day one's play, Pujara said, “We are happy with how the scoreboard looks. We have three spinners. There was variable bounce on the pitch and I hope we make the most of it.”