India’s no.3 played a highly uncharacteristic shot, and Cheteshwar Pujara’s dismissal in 3rd test left his captain Virat Kohli deeply unimpressed.
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After all the chatter about how good India started with the bat today, they find themselves reeling at 82/3 at lunch.
While Shikhar Dhawan and kl Rahul got out to two very good deliveries, it was the dismissal of Pujara that shocked everyone.
It was not the ball that was so good but the out of character shot played by Pujara that resulted in his downfall.
The ball was short on the body. Pujara got inside the line of the ball and pulled it to deep backward square where he picked Adil Rashid to perfection.
On a normal day pujara would have just tucked under this short ball or defended it with soft hands but today he decided to go for the pull and holed it out.
One might argue that this dismissal has to do something with all the talk going around to play positive cricket and show some intent.
One might never know whether this is the reason for such a shot or just a bad decision made by a man who is so comfortable leaving and defending the ball.
Also read: Stokes and Dhawan collide with each other; Dhawan gives a brilliant reaction
Chris woakes again, was the man for England. He accounted for all the three wickets that fell in the first session. The hosts in the morning looked pretty off color but it was also some good batting from Dhawan and Rahul who put on a 50 run stand in no time. Dhawan particularly punished every bad ball and was always on a lookout for a quick single.
India goes into lunch on day one being in a spot of bother. They would need a good partnership to come out of this or this innings total would not look very good.
And for that to happen Ajinkya Rahane would have to come out and stick with his skipper to stitch a partnership.
Here is the video:
Did you expect Pujara to play that shot?
WATCH (India only): https://t.co/YlOBzstJ49
Our live report delves on why the uncharacteristic shot from him: https://t.co/ycoOESg54R #ENGvIND
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) August 18, 2018