Cheteshwar Pujara once slammed a six after a hilarious message from Rohit Sharma

Time of India

8 hours ago

It is rare that
Cheteshwar Pujara
hits a six in a Test match, but the ability for the big shots was always there. One such instance where the solid batter showed aggression was during the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy when India needed quick runs.
However, the attacking instincts were shown only after a message from captain
Rohit Sharma
, who himself has been dismissed nine times in 19 innings against Australian spinner
Nathan Lyon
. The Indian skipper opened up about his frustration when
Pujara
was playing at his usual tepid rate.
India was on the verge of a rare home Test defeat in the third match of series in Indore with the team having been reduced to seven wickets with just 140 runs on the board in the second innings when Pujara and all-rounder Axar Patel's cautious play against Lyon miffed Sharma, who evidently wanted the two to change gears.
As the cameras panned on the captain, Sharma was be seen passing messages to substitute Ishan Kishan, who stepped onto the field to convey them.
It worked as Pujara slammed a six against Lyon over long on and Sharma was seen smiling. Though India went on to lose the Test, the moment is remembered on social media.
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'We wanted to get Nathan Lyon off the track a little bit. We wanted to get some runs quickly,' revealed Sharma during the book launch of '
The Diary of a Cricketer's Wife
', written by Pujara's wife, Puja, in Mumbai.
'We probably were looking at declaring or something. We were like… 'no, something needs to change now. Maybe, a message would do good'. The entire time, he was bowling with mid-on up. I was like, 'he's not that good of a bowler to keep mid-on up'. I know it was a challenge, the pitch was turning square, but we needed to get runs quickly. So I had to send Ishan,' Sharma said. said.
Sharma cheekily said that it wasn't always that batters (himself included) received the messages from the dressing room with both hands.
'It's one thing that we send messages. The most important thing is.. sometimes what batters do is whenever someone comes out with a message, we know exactly why he's there. So I would stop him there only!' Sharma added.