Cheteshwar Pujara was no stranger to being a casualty in the Indian XI despite being one of its finest Test batters in the last decade and a half. Sometimes for strike rate in the West Indies, sometimes after a few low scores in England, Pujara has always bore the brunt. But Pujara really got shaken when the chatter about dropping him during the 2018-19 Australia tour came to the fore. A man of few words, Pujara, when persuaded by his wife, Puja, could not hold back. The veteran batter narrated how he overheard talk of dropping him from the Melbourne Test.
Puja Pujara revealed the details in her book, ‘The Diary of a Cricketer’s Wife’. Puja wrote that her husband, who had scored a century and a half-century in the first Test in Adelaide to help India take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series, was struggling with a hamstring injury before the second Test in Perth. That was also the time when Pujara’s father, Arvind, suddenly fell and required hospitalisation as soon as possible.
Without revealing details of his father’s medical condition, Puja stood by her husband, who did not have the best of times in Perth, managing just 28 runs in both innings. India lost the Test by 146 runs.
It was between the second and the third Test that Pujara had a hard time. He was trying his best not to let the hamstring hamper his batting while his wife, Puja, was taking care of his father, who required an emergency heart procedure. Amid all this, Pujara overheard a telephonic conversation, where the main topic of discussion was his position in the XI for the Melbourne Test.
“Cheteshwar made the most of his three-day break and did not step out of his room much. He alternated between resting his afflicted limb and getting his strained hamstring treated. On the lone occasion when he did, he overheard someone engaged in an intense conversation on the telephone, stating that he did not want my husband to play in the coming match because he was unfit. It was an unpleasant incident. But Cheteshwar gave no sign that he had accidentally become privy to the said exchange. Neither did he tell anyone about Papa’s medical condition,” Puja wrote in her book.
