We are not worried about conceding 500-plus runs in practice match: Cheteshwar Pujara

It was a change of sort in the practice game that India played with Cricket Australia XI at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) recently with their batters flourishing and bowlers not. The visitors conceded 544 runs in the first innings and once again the lower-order troubled them. Though good form shown by the Indian batters gave the team management a greater assurance since it is the batting which has been giving them the nightmares on foreign tours of late.

India’s middle-order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara though did not find anything alarming in conceding 500-plus runs in a side game and defended his team’s bowlers ahead of the first Test in Adelaide beginning December 6. Captain Virat Kohli used as many as 10 bowlers, including himself, to get CA XI bowled out in more than 151 overs. The captain got the wicket of the opponent team’s centurion Harry Nielsen.

Pujara backs India’s bowlers

Cheteshwar Pujara dismissed concerns over the form of the Indian bowlers, who played a key role in India’s foreign assignments in the recent past. “Conceding 500 runs in a warm-up game doesn’t mean anything … we are not very much worried about it. Our bowlers know what they have to do … they know what line and lengths to bowl in Australia,” the 30-year-old batsman said in a media interaction. The batsman himself scored 54 in a match in which most Indian batsmen excelled. The match ended in a draw after the visitors conceded a lead of 186 runs in the first innings.

The Australian XI were 234 for 6 but then went on to add 310 runs for their remaining four wickets with even the last two batsmen adding 57 runs with 30-plus apiece. Mohammed Shami was the pick of the Indian bowlers with 3 for 97 while Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma took one scalp each. Among the spinners, Ravichandran Ashwin took two wickets and Ravindra Jadeja went wicketless.

The Indian squad took a day off from the net session on Monday, except Ashwin and Rohit Sharma, who is likely to play a Test after almost a year. Pujara said the idea behind the rest day was to help the players start afresh in the all-important first Test.

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