Robin Uthappa: ‘Not taking Cheteshwar Pujara to Australia was a big miss’

The Indian Express’ Sriram Veera, Devendra Pandey and Venkata Krishna B has reported on January 1 that head coach Gautam Gambhir wanted veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara in the team only for the suggestion to be shot down by the selectors.

With most of the Indian top order failing to spark to life in the ongoing series, a player like Pujara, who has 993 runs from 11 games at an average of 47.28 in Australia, might have made a difference.

Pujara was the leading run-getter in the 2018-19 series with 521 runs off 1258 balls and was once again the backbone of Indian batting three years later when he accumulated 271 runs off 928 balls, helping India win both series.

“They could have picked someone like the caliber of Pujara be it Hanuma Vihari,” said Uthappa.

Abhimanyu Easwaran didn’t get a chance to play in the five-match Test series in Australia.

Uthappa compared Abhimanyu Easwaran’s situation to Karun Nair, who was dropped after scoring a triple century.

“Abhimanyu Easwaran could have become a Pujara on this tour. He didn’t get any chance.

“He is scoring 1000 runs in every year in the domestic cricket. If you are playing him then don’t give the false hope to that person.

“Just tell him on the face that you don’t belong to the international cricket and you keep scoring runs in domestic cricket.

“There are so many players, Karun Nair was dropped after scoring a triple century. He didn’t do well in the two Tests and he was dropped. It was a shocker.