Cheteshwar Pujara’s 204 extricated Saurashtra from a tricky position. (Source: File) Cheteshwar Pujara’s 204 extricated Saurashtra from a tricky position. (Source: File)

The re-acquaintance with the Madhavrao Scindia Ground in Rajkot, where he’d spent more time than any other ground from his childhood to early adulthood, didn’t as much as dust up Cheteshwar Pujara’s nostalgia as it disturbed him. “It was sad to see how poorly maintained the ground is. It used to be such a lovely ground back then,” he laments. “Back then” implies a long time, though it’s been only two years since he’d featured in a few domestic limited-overs games there. Only that the decrepitness of it sunk in only over of the span of his record 12th first-class double hundred, the most by an Indian, which came against Jharkhand.

Of course, both Pujara and Rajkot have grown beyond the crumbling, old ground. The swank, new stadium at Khanderi now symbolises the cricketing stature of the city, which hosts New Zealand for a T20I in a few days, the reason the Ranji game is being held here. And Pujara has played all around the world and completed a half-century of Test matches. But there still is a lingering fondness for the old stadium, even if Pujara admits his memories of the ground remain muddled. “I have played so many matches here that I don’t recollect specific matches or milestones. I remember scoring back-to-back triple hundreds in U-22 or U-23 here. I think I scored my first double hundred here.

You have to recheck,” he says, stuttering for the exactness of the details. It eludes his memory that he made both his first-class debut and hundred here. “I think so. It has to be here because it’s where I played most of the games before the new stadium was opened. But then I’ve played so many matches here that I can’t precisely recall the dates or scores,” he says.

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Embedded, though, in his memory is benignness, the notorious benignness, of the surfaces, likened often to the sprawling express highways of the state. “I remember most of the surfaces here were extremely batting-friendly. You need to get your eye in and can score big,” he says.

But as he strode in to bat against Jharkhand, he was in for another shock. It wasn’t one of the signature fearther beds he was so accustomed to. “From my experience, I tried to visualise how the pitch would behave. Normally, you can play your strokes right from the start. But I was wrong. It wasn’t a wicket where you could freely score runs. I had to dig in,” he reflects.

There was assistance for the seamers in the first session and help for spinners as the day dragged on. “The ball was moving around a bit and it did spin later on. So you could never relax and think you are fully settled. They (Jharkhand) also have good bowlers. Varun (Aaron) and Shahbaz (Nadeem) were bowling well,” he says.

Saurashtra’s early stumble—they were at one stage 134/4 — only ratifies his observation. “It was hard work,” he says, before adding, “The kind of hardworking knock that sets the tone for the long season.”

Morale-restoring

Admittedly, he wasn’t aware that his 204 had a record-breaking value. “Someone tagged me on Twitter saying I have scored more double hundreds than any other Indian batsman. Later, a teammate told me that Donald Bradman has scored the most number of double hundreds (37). I was not aware of either,” he says, with an almost inaudible laugh.

But more than the record the knock set, Pujara is contented that he’s back to scoring big knocks, especially after his unproductive county stint, where his best score was 34 in eight innings. The first two Ranji matches too didn’t yield the desired returns. It wasn’t bothering him, but he was a trifle restless without a habitual big knock. “I was not feeling concerned or anything, for playing in the county circuit is not just about scoring a lot of runs, but about getting used to the conditions. Also, the conditions this time were really difficult for batting and there were a lot of low scores. But you still need runs, and from that perspective the double hundred was timely, especially as we are playing Sri Lanka in a couple of weeks’ time,” he says. Last year too, it was the double hundreds in the Duleep Trophy that set the tone for the season, wherein his amassed 1,316 runs at 62.66 in 13 Tests. “It (a big knock) gives you the rhythm and the right frame of mind going into a long season. It gives you the flow, helps you concentrate and obviously you see the ball better. Hopefully, this knock augurs well for me, like the Duleep ones,” he says.

It might have been sheer coincidence, though appropriate, that the record-breaking double hundred came at the very ground he’d grown up playing the game and where most of his “firsts” had arrived. It would, hopefully, set the tone for another productive season, though it might not help muddling his memory of the ground further.

Brief scores: Saurashtra 553/9 Decl (Cheteshwar Pujara 204, Chirag Jani 108, Perek Mankad 85, Ravindra Jadeja 42, Ashish Kumar 3/76, Varun Aaron 3/96) lead Jharkhand 52/2 (Sumit Kumar 23 no, Jaydev Unadkat 2/13) by 501 runs

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