Former South African captain AB de Villiers showered praise on Cheteshwar Pujara’s Test career, lauding the batter for his grit, fighting spirit, and never-give-up attitude. Pujara, who announced his retirement on Sunday, played 103 Tests and 5 ODIs for India after making his debut back in 2010. He scored 7,195 Test runs at an average of 43.60, with 19 hundreds and 35 fifties.
Pujara was known to give his 120% on the field and showed all the resistance while batting in difficult conditions and bowlers. The right-hander had solid defense and he was always ready to take body blows for the team, if needed.
AB de Villiers said on his YouTube Channel, “His Test career is what we’ll remember about him when it comes to cricket. Just a guy with a lot of grit. fighting spirit, never say die kind of attitude. Us South Africans always look at the way we play, and we are proud of the way that we never say die, and we have that kind of fighting spirit.
“But Pujara was one of those guys that I look at and I had so much respect for him, the way he played Test cricket. Always the rock in the team, almost similar in a way to Rahul Dravid back in the day, who was a very, very tough campaigner to get rid of.”
On the other hand, Pujara was also part of RCB from 2011 to 2013. He scored 143 runs in 10 innings for the franchise in the limited chances he got. AB recalled that Pujara always had a smile on his face despite getting a few opportunities.
AB added, “What a fantastic player! I played with him at RCB for a brief while. I think it was one season, maybe two. He didn’t play a lot of games, so he won’t have fond memories of it, but I do, as I’ve always enjoyed his presence. Very quiet, calm, collected kind of character. Just a nice guy, genuinely. Had a nice smile on his face more often than not, and that’s what I’ll remember about him at RCB.”
Overall, Pujara finishes with 21301 runs from 278 first-class games at an average of 51.82 and 66 hundreds and three triple hundreds.
