Third Test: England v India at Trent Bridge, 18-22 August.

[andy]

As do most Indian batsmen....

[Dr Cricket]

Imho the way pujara bats gives him the impression he is way more solid than he really is plus the fact he his quite good in Asian conditions averages around 65 in Asia.

TBH think people are more fed up with his dopey attitude than his batting.

Average 33 in Australia which is poor compared to the easy tracks there.
19 in england very poor considering how many games he played in england.
62 in India
15 in NZ
31 in SA
90 in Sri lanka
31 in WI

62 home
33 away

[Dr Cricket]

As do most Indian batsmen....

yes which is the difference between an indian player and fan and fans/players from other countries.

[Dr Cricket]

Pujara averages 50 in test cricket a lot of that away from home, and Indian fans treat him with such disdain, its laughable!

he gets treated with disdain because he doesn't perform when it matters and he does a lot of dopey stuff.

take this test for example looks flat the bowlers bowling poor stuff now and he get out with a great platform set and he gives his wicket away.

[Dr Cricket]

Don't care what player you are but averaging around 20 in about half or quarter of the nations is very poor and he needs to work on that.

the problem with pujara is that he can do so much better which is the frustrating part.

of course with the likes of dhawan you not really expecting much in SENA nations but someone with pujara skills should be a bedrock like kohli been and not a walking wicket.

Times like this where pujara is very overated especially overseas since they all think he should be doing better than he is and can't really understand why he either not playing or doing *modded*.

frustrating part is that pujara not fixing small technical glitches whereas kohli has.
Pujara batting the same way he did in year 1 and he still getting out the same way.

[Dr Cricket]

Pujara needs to stop making excuses as well, he puting his poor record in England county championship down to bowling friendly decks to get bonus points and not that he got a problem in moving conditions.

he really needs to admit he got a problem and work on it.
the reason he gets dropped a lot or has quite a few people wanting him to get dropped is at the moment he doing nothing, he doesn't score runs and he doesn't really survive much outside the 50-60 ball he takes to dismiss him.
a lot of the time outside asia you feel someone needs to take him out to get him out of his misery of being in the middle.

Very frustrating player at the moment.
Do like him but boy he needs to improve and think he can do it the way he doing it at the moment.

[andy]

151-3 Rashid getting bit of tap

[Dr Cricket]

it should be noted in Indian cricket, Fans wise and media wise you are only known if you perform in SENA nations.
you can average like bradman and win everysingle game in Asia and home and if you do not perform in Sena as a team or player you haven't achieved anything and will be regarded as a failure and that is a fact.
I doubt that will ever change since home advantage is so huge at home and india very desperate lately to win in SENA nations and at the moment batsman to do well in those nations as well with only Kohli batting anywhere in an acceptable manner in those nations.

Think kohli article on 2014 england tour and his poor mindset is a good article to understand the pressure the indian players are when their tour in SENA nations.

In summary Kohli felt he could score millions around the world but he felt if he didn't score runs in England he wasn't a proper batsman and the constant reminders from media about him scoring runs in england is a must to be a good player got to him and he wasn't in the right mindset to score runs or survive those.

100% pujara facing the same pressure with his poor SENA record.

[Dr Cricket]

if it was too me I would drop pujara and blood a new kid he had enough chances now and with him being 30 now he going to be 34 in his next SENA test and he obviously not going to do well or even be in the team for that part of his career.
so might as well blood new blood now rather test them 4-5 yrs later when they been chucked in the deep end like the likes of pujara, Kohli, Rahane etc were in 2014 and looking at it from now only one of the batsman swam the rest all sank under the pressure.
Would prefer if new blood or new batting line up isn't chucked in the deep end like this current gen were.
Rahane, Pujara and kohli could have been blood in 2011 but were not, could have been different career for them if they did start earlier.

No issues with him playing at home or in asia though.

[Dr Cricket]

Anyway moving on from pujara, So nice to finally have a good batting deck and deck india could make england weakness with ball and bat count now.

Barring the lords test match, this is probably the close contest people were expecting in this series, considering not sure much actually separates the sides in England.

England better when the ball swinging and hooping corners and a seam friendly pitch, in a normal batting deck think india probably have the edge with them having a better bowling attack for flatter conditions and quicker bowlers probably getting more out of the limited help in the wicket.
batting ability probably the same with england probably having the edge because of the lower order strength.

[Dr Cricket]

50 for kohli well played, let make it a big now.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Great session for India and better from Rahane who had looked as disorientated as anyone previously.

Rashid struggling, but not really his role on the first day. Wonder if Root might have an over or two.

[Dr Cricket]

yeah pleased for rahane he was shot to pieces and looked gone.
reports were that he was even close to not making the 4th or 5th match squad let alone the team for this match.

[mikesiva]

Someone other than kohli got a half century!

[Dr Cricket]

Well played Rahane.
so please for him considering the lows he been going through with the bat recently.