[Video] Cheteshwar Pujara 206 vs England | 1st Test Ahmedabad 2012

Cheteshwar Pujara 206 vs England | 1st Test Ahmedabad 2012 HD Video Highlights

'We didn't force Cheteshwar to become a cricketer' - Arvind Pujara

Arvind Pujara, in conversation with Haresh Pandya, discusses the rise of his son, Indian cricket's new star Cheteshwar.

I'm obviously a proud father. But only I know how hard and sincerely my son Cheteshwar, whom we affectionately call Chintu, has strove to reach where he is today.

Doubtless, he had some potential to become a cricketer. But being a first-class cricketer myself, I know very well that mere potential or talent doesn't take you anywhere or far enough.

You've first to sharpen your skills and then form a habit of translating them into sterling performances.

It's a long process, but the fruits are tasty.

Chintu being our only child, my wife Reena and I were particularly careful about his development. It isn't that we forced him to become a cricketer. No!

The fact is I could see genuine talent for cricket in him when he was barely four or five. His stance, his manner of wielding the small bat and his hand-eye coordination pleasantly surprised me.

Also, his balance, his movement of the feet and his use of the toes while flicking or glancing the ball at such a tender age made me feel that if I worked on his batting, he could become a good batsman.

I began to help Chintu practise first with a rubber ball and then with a hard ball at the Railway ground, which was only a few metres from the quarters my employers, the Railways, had provided me, both in the morning and evening.

He was only a kid and I didn't want the ball to bounce above knee height lest it might injure him. So I would bowl underarm at him -- about 50, 60 balls in the morning and another 50, 60 in the evening. He was so keen to bat that he would ask for more.

Seeing us practice regularly, other kids also started joining in. Chintu would play each ball on merit. I used to guide him whenever he played wrongly or made mistakes.

I could see that within a few days Chintu grew in confidence and some of the shots he executed were really incredible.

After a few days I began making him bowl and field as more and more boys joined us. To my surprise, Chintu bowled fastish leg-spin. I found his bowling just about as good as his batting.

Within a couple of years Chintu was emerging as an all-rounder. Being a father, I naturally began to see great cricketing talent in him. But I realised it was a father's opinion, which could be subjective or biased; or both.

So I decided to consult my friend, former India all-rounder Karsan Ghavri. He asked me to meet him in Mumbai along with Chintu. We immediately set off for Mumbai by train.

Ghavri made Chintu bat and bowl at the BPCL (Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited) ground for nearly three hours.

Impressed, Ghavri told me to concentrate on Chintu's batting and predicted that he would play for India one day. I, too, always felt that Chintu was a better batsman than bowler and Ghavri's word convinced me further.

Batting in front of someone like Ghavri and interacting with him not only made Chintu very happy, but also gave him new found confidence. He began to bat with new vigour, new zeal and would tell the boys at my camp to bowl more and more at him.

I soon realised that Chintu was hardly getting to bat against decent pace bowlers, not just in the camp, but also in his school and other matches. And he wasn't getting to play more matches either.

I strongly feel that match practice is a must for anyone. Chintu was about 10 years old when my wife and I decided to spend his summer and winter vacations in Mumbai for the development of our son's cricket.

It would serve two purposes -- Chintu would get to bat against quality fast bowlers and also have sufficient match practice.

But it wasn't easy. Being a humble government employee, I was always hard-pressed for money even though there were only three members in our family.

We had no other source of income. But we were prepared to sacrifice anything, including my wife's savings, for our son.

Accommodation in Mumbai was a major problem. Initially we stayed in an under-construction building in Rabale in Thane district, where life was full of hardships, particularly for my wife, who had a tough time fetching water and washing clothes.

The best part was that Chintu was getting match practice in Mumbai, though he had to travel a lot, both by bus and train. My wife and I used to accompany him to matches and would watch the action from the boundary.

Karsan Ghavri helped us immensely those days. He helped Chintu turn out for the former Mumbai left-arm spinner Ravi Thakkar's club in Matunga. Why, Thakkar even helped us get accommodation in Mulund (northeast Mumbai)!

Another person who helped us a great deal in Mumbai was Ramesh Kasbekar, an IOC (Indian Oil Corporation) official. He had seen Chintu in my camp when he was posted in Rajkot.

He was very impressed by Chintu's batting and had predicted a bright future for him. I had coached Kasbekar's son in my camp. He, too, helped us with a place to live in at Panvel (a township in Navi Mumbai).

But for timely help by Ghavri, Thakkar and Kasbekar, life would have been miserable for us in Mumbai.

In Mumbai, Chintu used to play about three matches a week and 12 games a month. During our two-month stay in Mumbai he used to play 20-odd matches, which was more than we had bargained for.

After all, in Rajkot he didn't get to play even 20 matches in a whole year!

In Mumbai, where we went for three years, Chintu played the maximum number of his inter-club and inter-camp matches in Dadar (central Mumbai).

Living, travelling and playing in Mumbai toughened Chintu as a cricketer. He learned to adjust himself to situations. Importantly, it added the much-needed competitive edge to his overall cricket.

Playing in Mumbai changed his entire approach to cricket.

All this became apparent when he was selected in the Saurashtra Under-14 team, when he scored back-to-back centuries -- 138 against Mumbai and 306 not out versus Baroda in 2000-01.

In many ways, the 306 not out turned out to be a turning point in his career. Not only did it earn him national headlines for the first time; his progress as a cricketer has been marked since then.

People began to notice him, recognise him and even started predicting a great future for him.

While all that was good and complimentary, I kept telling Chintu during his teenage years to always keep a level head and never allow success and fame to get the better of him.

People often ask me what Chintu would have become if not a cricketer.

Well, the truth is he climbed the cricket ladder at a very early age and now he is so successful in his chosen field, that we've hardly had time to think about another career option for him.

Since he was a brilliant student, I've no hesitation in saying that he would have become a doctor, or an engineer or an executive. He could have excelled in any profession.

Though he doesn't have any time for studies now, he is very keen on completing at least his graduation.

Of course, I've taught him the ABC of cricket. We still discuss his cricket, his technical flaws, his failures, his success and many other things besides whenever we're together; or on the phone when he is away playing or touring.

He has had an inborn talent for cricket and I really can't take much credit for what he is and where he has reached today.

Maybe he was already like a rough diamond and I've polished him a bit.

It's from his mother Reena that Chintu has learned important lessons about life like honesty, sincerity, punctuality, discipline and even spirituality, which have always stood him in good stead as a cricketer.

Like me, she wanted Chintu to become a cricketer. But it was her dream that he play for India and bring laurels to the country.

In fact, she seemed to have more confidence in his ability than probably Chintu himself. I still remember her telling me: "Once he is selected in the Indian team, he will be unstoppable."

But cricket isn't all about technique. It calls for many other qualities too.

Reena wanted to make him a better human being first. She has inculcated certain basic values in Chintu. She was extremely religious and it is from her that Chintu has learned the importance of performing puja and saying daily prayers.

She always told Chintu that puja and prayer make one mentally tough and give peace of mind.

These are vital virtues for a cricketer, though not many possess them. You can see them in Chintu's ability to excel under pressure.

She took utmost care of Chintu and looked after him without ever pampering him. She would ensure that Chintu went to bed early and got up early in the morning. She further ensured that Chintu took his simple, but healthy and nutritious food, and milk on time.

She had made it mandatory for him to drink a glass of coconut juice daily after his cricket practice.

Being almost obsessed about cricket, Chintu himself was never obstinate about anything, not even fancy toys and other luxuries. Playing cricket was everything for him right from his childhood.

There was tremendous attachment between the mother and the son. On his part, Chintu had promised her that one day he would fulfill her dream.

But fate had other ideas. She was diagnosed with cancer and succumbed to the dreaded disease in October 2005 when Chintu was returning after playing a match in Bhavnagar.

Just an hour before her death she had told me we would go to receive Chintu at the bus station. But suddenly she developed acute pain and uneasiness. I was out buying medicine for her when I got the news that she breathed her last.

It was very sad that neither Chintu nor I was by her side when she passed away. You can imagine what a huge shock it must have been for Chintu when he was told about his mother's death.

We were really worried about him, especially when he barely uttered a few words, let alone shed tears, for several days. It was as if his world had collapsed.

Reena's death made Chintu more determined, and if you look at his scores and performances post-2005, you can notice a remarkable degree of consistency in them.

He was so close to his mother and he loved her so much that I was certain he wouldn't rest content till he got the India cap.

He knew it would be his best possible tribute to his mother, the fulfillment of her long-cherished dream.

Though she isn't alive to see where her son has reached today, I am sure she must be blessing him from wherever she is.

If there is any other person Chintu is more attached to after his mother, it is his spiritual guru, Hariprasadji Maharaj from Gondal near Rajkot.

He has known Chintu since he was a baby and his blessings mean so much for my son.

Chintu has recently been engaged to a Rajkot girl, Puja Pabari, who belongs to our Lohana community. Hariprasadji Maharaj has blessed the couple. Chintu and Puja make a nice pair.

After Reena's death I always felt that Chintu needed some emotional support. It is from his mother and his wife that a man gets emotional support.

Moreover, I also have health problems. I underwent open heart surgery last year which lasted six hours. Chintu was with me at the time as he was recuperating from his injury, which resulted in him missing three important Test tours -- to the West Indies, to England and to Australia.

He has suffered serious heart-breaking knee injuries, not only once but twice. Isn't it strange that on both occasions he was fielding? His steely resolve helped him come out successfully from those injuries.

It wasn't easy though. But he religiously followed the instructions of his doctors and exercised regularly.

Never once did I see him disheartened. Even when I was recovering after heart surgery, he had been encouraging me, giving me himmat (courage).

(Source)

The Making of Cheteshwar Pujara

Another compelling argument for nurture over nature

It is about sixty paces from the wicket to the pavilion at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad. When Cheteshwar Pujara made this trek on the second day of the first Test against England, he did so having scored his first Test double century. The innings came on a pitch that was an all-you-can-eat buffet for Indian batsmen. But a Test double still takes some doing. As Pujara and Pragyan Ojha, the other not-out batsman, headed for the Indian dressing room, Arvind Pujara, sitting in his Rajkot home about 225 km away, could at last get up when he pleased.

Arvind Pujara watches the Ahmedabad Test in his Rajkot home.

Arvind Pujara, a former Saurashtra player, is Chetesh- war’s father and first coach. Arvind’s father also played state cricket, as did his brother, Bipin. Arvind is a deeply religious man but has no superstitious tics when Chetesh war is batting. But not getting up when his son is at the crease has become one by default. “Once I sit, I don’t feel like getting up… you concentrate so hard [on the match]. And [not getting up] becomes a super- stition,” he says. He did not go to Ahmedabad to watch the match. Being a widower, he is mostly alone at home. This is festival season. He did not want to lock up the house and be elsewhere when people dropped in. Arvind’s wife, Rina, died of cancer in 2005. She now lives on in memories and photographs, where no tumours can grow and where her constant expression is a smile.

“What I did [coaching Cheteshwar] is there in front of the world. But people don’t know how much his mother did,” Arvind says. “All the sanskara, and things like nutrition, came from her. In Gujarati, we have a saying. ‘A mother is worth a hundred teachers’.”

Arvind Pujara looks a bit like Anupam Kher. “Yes, people say that,” he says with a laugh. But Pujara is chubbier and has light eyes. He speaks with us in a Gujarati-inflected Hindi interspersed with English phrases. When he awaits us in the swanky new three-storey house the Pujaras have built off the 150 metre Ring Road in Rajkot, he is standing on the staircase, taking a call on a gadget that requires you to use the entire width of your palm.The Pujaras are a devout, orthodox family. “We are Raghuvanshis, Ram bhakts,” Arvind says. There is a large rangoli at the entrance, and a spacious prayer room outside Cheteshwar’s bedroom. Cheteshwar prays there everyday when he is home. When he is touring, he carries a puja kit with him and sets it up in his hotel room.

We sit on sofas in the drawing room, which looks out on to a terrace garden. The tiles are white and smooth, accentuating the sweatiness of our feet. In one corner of the room hangs a Samsung large-screen TV. The match is on. England are now batting after India’s declaration, and though they are fighting back, India are in a very strong position. Arvind Pujara does not have to concentrate hard.  At our asking, he begins to narrate their story. It is a storyof a middle-class family producing an India cricketer because one man had a hunch and his family had the discipline to turn that hunch into reality. Much like the Tendulkars’ story.

When Cheteshwar was two-and-a-half, a friend of Arvind’s nephew visited them. He was a photographer. Charmed by the toddler, he took him to a nearby garden to take pictures. He also carried a toy bat and ball. One of the pictures shows the little Cheteshwar trying to go up on his feet to negotiate a ball coming up to his chin. From the picture it looks like a mishit. But the boy’s eyes are intensely focused on the ball. That is what Arvind saw. And he saw the foot raised on its toes. In another photograph, he saw the natural follow-through. “There was a light in my mind,” Arvind says. He gets up from the sofa to get enlarged, framed copies of the photos. (In the meantime, a domestic help brings ice cream in steel cups).When Arvind returns, he also brings a large horizontal composite image a local photographer had gifted them. It shows Cheteshwar the toddler and the present day Cheteshwar playing ostensibly identical shots. To Arvind, the symmetry of the two pictures confirms the accuracy of his intuition.

After the young Cheteshwar’s chance photo session in the garden, Arvind started taking him to the ground. He tossed rubber balls at him. After a couple of years, he thought a second opinion was necessary. He called Karsan Ghavri, the former India left-arm bowler whom he knew and who was Gujarati too. Ghavri asked him to bring the boy to Bombay. “He saw him and then told me in our Kathiawadi dialect that the boy has it and that we should work hard on him.”

This is where the story gets inspiring and rich in lessons for families ambitious for their children. This is also where Rina’s contribution becomes apparent. “If you want to make your child disciplined, you, the parents, will also have to stay disciplined,” Arvind says. “You will have to forgo a few things. Most parents these days watch television till late in the night. When you yourself are watching TV, you can’t ask the kid to sleep early. He won’t.”

At the Pujaras, it was lights out by 9 pm. If Rina had pending work, she would get up after everyone was asleep and quietly complete it. For years she did not go to even see a navratri garba, a big occasion in Gujarat. If relatives called to say they were in town and asked Rina to meet them in the evening, she would refuse because Cheteshwar would have practice in the morning.

Arvind’s other non-negotiable rule for those wanting to raise champions concerns diet. “There should be no fast food at home,” he says. “Food has to be healthy. My wife handled that. She ensured there was coconut water for Cheteshwar every time he came back from practice. These are small things but in the long run they pay. He batted eight-nine hours [8 hours, 33 minutes] in this innings. We are vegetarian. Where did he get the stamina from?”

Rina also drew Cheteshwar into the world of prayer. As a boy of about five,Cheteshwar would like to play video games. His mother would let him,if he prayed for ten minutes. Arvind and Rina quarrelled over this approach of hers. He felt that if she wanted to allow him, she needed to do it unconditionally. “I told her, don’t blackmail him,” Arvind says. There is a rubber band wound around the fingers of his meaty left hand, which he fiddles with now and then.“She said I was misunderstanding the situation. Because of her, he is now used to puja. The other thing, he would get dried fruits as prasad, some cashewnuts or almonds. Some kids don’t like dried fruit. They wouldn’t have it if you just gave it to them. But when offered as prasad, he had to take it and it was nutrition.”

Prayer keeps Cheteshwar’s mind balanced, his father says. And it is the balance that helps him in his cricket. Back at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad, after India had won the first Test, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said of Pujara that he was a calm presence in the dressing room who understood his role and accepted his responsibilities. “Even after scoring a double hundred, he stood at forward short leg,” Dhoni said. “He is one of our best fielders for that position, or silly point. He could have easily said he wasn’t feeling a hundred per cent.”

The trained mind also helps Chetesh- war construct big scores, which have become his hallmark ever since he started making a name for himself. Pujara famously scored three triple centuries in a month for Saurashtra. Just a few matches into his Test career, he has a double century and a 150-plus score, and a vital 72 in the fourth innings against Australia in his debut Test. As a boy, he scored 5,000 runs in under-14 to under-19 cricket, a rare achievement. “His mind is a bit different,” Arvind says. “He is very balanced. That’s the key point. So he can bat according to the situation.”

Cheteshwar’s mental endurance was tested in 2005, when he was playing an under-19 district match in Bhavnagar. His team lost. He called his mother to say he was leaving by a Gujarat transport bus and to ask his father to pick him up in the evening. When he reached Rajkot, his mother was no more. “He was shocked. He felt grief. But he did not shed a tear,” says Arvind. “I’m older but I [still] get tears in my eyes. He doesn’t. On the fifth day, there was another under-19 match in Bombay. We sent him to play. The atmosphere at home wasn’t the best.”

Cheteshwar’s heart was not in the game. He did not perform and came back to Rajkot for the 12th day rites, which only he, as the son, could perform. During the ritual Bhandara in an ashram, he met the family guru, who told him a few simple things. But because they came from him and they came at a certain time, they registered. He told him that his mother had been there so far and she had taken care of him. Now, if he wanted to become a cricketer, he would have to take care of himself. He would have to eat right and on time, among other things.

Rajkot is a typical Indian small town, some parts impoverished and some others beginning to see a new prosperity.Small towns may have their disadvantages, but for Arvind Pujara they are better on balance. It is harder for small-town cricketers to get opportunities, but the benefit, he says, is that small-town kids do not have the distractions or arrogance of kids from metros.

“You will feel bad,” he says.“…but metro kids have a lot of vices. Less discipline. A little bit of success and they think ‘I’ve become a big player’. Metros don’t have [one] culture. It’s a cosmopolitan society, cultures mix and no one culture prevails. Here, one culture prevails. If you want to drink, you feel ashamed, thoda check bhi rehta hai. In a big city, you wouldn’t know what your kid was up to.”

There is glamour in cricket, but he believes his son, not just pious but recently engaged, will resist the advances of the temptress, whatever form she assumes. “You give my son ten bottles, 50 bottles, he won’t drink. Because he is not interested,” Arvind says.

He gives us a tour of the house, on condition that the photographer only sees and doesn’t shoot. In the gym, which is in the basement, there is a smell of rubber. Two pairs of Nike workout shoes lie in a corner. In addition to the treadmill-type equipment, there is a ten-pair dumbbell set, ranging from 2.5 kg each to 25 kg. The dumbbells are black. Lying there in a straight line they look like an army of sorts. You expect a similar set of white on the other side, glaring back at the black set. Arvind Pujara shows us Cheteshwar’s bedroom, and the temple outside. The temple is under a large window from which you can see the bustle on Ring Road. The bedroom is that of a wealthy young man. It is slick and spacious, with a bed in the middle and another Samsung large-screen TV. Tony Scarface Montana wouldn’t be out of place in this room. There are plastic bags with stuff on a horizontal plane under the TV. But this is not Tony Montana stuff. This is not yayo. These are bags of cashewnuts and almonds. Because Cheteshwar now has to take care of himself.

(Source)