Cheteshwar Pujara declared his retirement from all forms of cricket on Sunday, August 24. He finished as one of India’s greatest red-ball hitters of all time. Throughout his brilliant career, Pujara firmly established himself as India’s Test number three. The Saurashtra hitter scored 6529 runs at No. 3 after 155 innings at 44.41.
Former England captain Nasser Hussain commended Pujara for making an impact as a No. 3
batsman, particularly after replacing a legend like Rahul Dravid. Hussain further claimed that active batting stalwarts such as Shubman Gill and Joe Root do not desire to bat at number three in Test cricket.
“A real old-school No. 3. And he had to take over from one of the all-time great No. 3s in Rahul Dravid. It’s something that’s a little bit lacking in international cricket – No. 3s. Even in the England side, Joe Root doesn’t want to do it. Shubman Gill doesn’t want to do it for India since he has got the captaincy. He wants to bat at 4,” Hussain told on the Sky Sports YouTube channel.
“In our era, your No. 3 was your best player, whether it be Viv Richards, Ricky Ponting or Rahul Dravid. Not an easy position to do but Pujara did it as well as anyone,” he added.
He protected the middle order: Hussain
The cricketer-turned-commentator also said that Pujara helped the middle-order batters immensely by playing out the new ball. Hussain also mentioned Pujara’s phenomenal batting performances in Australia, orchestrating Test series wins for India in 2018-19 and 2020-21.
“Another one of the old school batters is gone. A bat for your life and over my dead body sort of batter that played the ball late and produced some great innings, especially in Australia. He was loved by Indian fans for playing like that. And he protected the middle order, with the likes of Kohli in there, from the new ball. Working with him, he’s exactly like how he was when he batted. Very calm, quietly spoken and talks a lot of sense,” said Hussain.
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