With Cheteshwar Pujara’s retirement, have we seen the last of the Test specialists? | Cricket News

37-year-old Pujara on Sunday introduced his retirement from all types of Indian cricket. (PTI Photo/Vijay Verma)

Mumbai: 66 million years. That’s how way back one will have to return to hint the extinction of dinosaurs.With Cheteshwar Pujara’s retirement on Sunday, the last Test-only participant has turn out to be extinct. After all, we dwell in instances the place Test picks too are influenced by IPL performances.

Pujara’s twin dismissals in his last Test, the 2023 WTC remaining, towards Australia, have been ironic. In the first innings, he bought out bowled doing one thing he had completed for a dwelling. Leaving the ball. In the second, he was out taking part in an uncharacteristic ramp off Pat Cummins.Between these two pictures although, was a profession constructed on simply retaining the good balls out, grinding down assaults and scoring off the unhealthy deliveries. An anomaly in an age of intent retailers and strike-rates.That drill was cultivated at the Railways floor in Rajkot, the place his father Arvind usually censured him for enjoying an aerial stroke. He even stopped his son from taking part in soft-ball cricket as he feared that his recreation would get polluted and would jeopardise their joint dream of carrying India’s Test cap No. 266 in Bengaluru, in Oct 2010, towards of course, Australia.Curiously, he batted at No. 5 in the first innings to interchange an injured VVS Laxman and No. 3 in the second to interchange a demoted Rahul Dravid.

FILE – India’s Cheteshwar Pujara performs a shot throughout the third day of the fourth cricket take a look at match between India and Australia in Ahmedabad, India, Saturday, March 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki, File)

Talk about passing the baton.For the Pujara’s, taking part in for India solely meant taking part in Tests. Mind you, the cash-rich IPL was already three seasons outdated.How many father-son duos exist immediately who stroll as much as coaches and inform them: ‘Make him bat like Pujara’?Former India skipper and chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar, who additionally runs an academy in Mumbai and organises a number of tournaments, acknowledges that gamers like Pujara are a rarity in immediately’s instances. But he additionally feels that the choice to play solely Tests was not his alone.

“Players like Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane wanted to play T20 too. No body wants to play only in one format. It puts too much pressure on the player as you have to perform in every match,” Vengsarkar advised TOI.“Rahane has a couple of IPL hundreds. Many feel that he was a Test specialist. Had Pujara been given chances in T20s, he too would have found a way to succeed,” he provides.Vengsarkar’s level about the stress of taking part in solely in a single format is properly taken. Pujara should have felt it. After his 193 in the 2019 Sydney Test throughout the 2018-2019 Border Gavaskar Trophy, he performed 62 innings in 35 Tests and in 21 of them, failed to achieve double figures. In them have been six geese. His common in these 35 Tests was 29.98.The riches that T20 cricket promise immediately could have doused the ambitions of the fashionable participant to take physique blows like Pujara and tire out bowling assaults. He would relatively throw bowlers off by taking part in laps and scoops.

FILE – India’s Cheteshwar Pujara walks off the pitch after being given out caught behind off the bowling of Australia’s Pat Cummins on the fourth day of the ICC World Test Championship Final between India and Australia at The Oval cricket floor in London, Saturday, June 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

A former India batter, who runs an academy in Mumbai says, “The first thing we were taught was forward defence and back foot defence. Only after we had mastered them, we worked on attacking shots. Today, 10 and 12-year-olds play the scoop in the first 10 balls during their net session. And often it is the parents who ask us, ‘when will my kid learn to play reverse sweep or switch hit’”For Vengsarkar although there can’t be a compromise on fundamentals.“In our academy, no child below 15 is allowed to play scoops, reverse scoops or ramps. The margin of error is small while playing them. The player won’t graduate to higher grades playing only fancy strokes.”The 116-Test veteran additionally has some recommendation for pushy dad and mom.“Money has become important. Parents guide players and find coaches to teach kids fancy shots or take them to clubs, or make them switch clubs that encourage attacking play. I have seen parents making their children jump from one club to another. But if parents are mature enough, they would realise that unless you have a solid foundation, you won’t be able to adapt to different formats.”What about picks to the Test group although? On one hand we have an Abhimanyu Easwaran, who has a FC common of near 50 however has seen 16 gamers leapfrog him for a Test debut. And on the different, gamers get in the Test group after one good IPL season?

LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 12: Cheteshwar Pujara of India rings the 5 minute bell previous to day three of the Third Test Match between England and India at Lord’s Cricket Ground on July 12, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Why? Rahane himself earned a Test recall for the WTC remaining primarily based on his spectacular present for CSK in the 2023 IPL.Vengsarkar, one of India’s most celebrated chief selectors, is unhesitant in calling it out. “It is unfair to pick a player for Tests on the basis of IPL performances especially if it happens at the expense of someone who has performed consistently in domestic cricket. Selectors must judge if a player can handle short pitched deliveries or can bat on a seaming track when there are four slips and a gully waiting. Do we see that in the IPL?”He feels if extra gamers like Pujara have to be unearthed, selectors should make taking part in in the Duleep Trophy and Irani Cup necessary.“Pick your red ball team based on what those players do in these tournaments. All matches must take place in the south in Sept as it does not rain there in Sept. If an IPL performer also handles spinners, fast bowlers, different situations well, defends solidly and plays out a spell if a bowler is on top, pick him. A good long format player can always adapt to the shorter format.”Today’s swipe technology could keep in mind a lap of Mumbai Indians’ Suryakumar Yadav that goes outdoors the stadium for six months. What will keep of their reminiscence financial institution although is Pujara’s 211-ball 56 at the Gabba that made lockdown days extra cheerful for Indians. It made even CSK shell out Rs. 50 lakh to bag him at the 2021 IPL mini-auction. When requested why did the franchise choose somebody who last performed in the IPL in 2014, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan mentioned, “It was out of respect for his contribution for India.”That says every thing.