New Delhi, Dec 23 Veteran India batter Cheteshwar Pujara feels Yashasvi Jaiswal is trying to rush through things while batting in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy series and advised left-handed opener to give himself a bit more time at the crease.
Jaiswal has amassed 193 runs in three Tests so far, out of 161 came in his brilliant second innings knock in Perth, where India won by 295 runs. But after that, Jaiswal has struggled to get going, which is evident from his scores of 0, 24, 4 and 4 not out.
“He needs to give himself a bit more time, the way he is playing, he is trying to rush things, he is trying to play shots a bit more. He should only play shots if he is quite sure about it, especially in the first 5-10 overs because it seems that he is in a hurry to score runs, he wants a quick start, and he wants to score those first 15-20 runs quickly.”
“When you are an opener in Test Cricket then you don’t go out searching for the ball, you play the deliveries on merit. Even if you are an aggressive player, even Virender Sehwag was an aggressive player but he used play shots only when the ball was pitched in his zone.”
“There are a lot of aggressive batters and openers in Test Cricket today but they play the shots when the ball is pitched in the hitting zone, but here it looks like Yashasvi is trying to convert the shots, he is trying to drive the deliveries which are not pitched up,” said Pujara on Star Sports.
In this series, Jaiswal has been dismissed four times by left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc and Pujara has called upon the youngster to defend well and take a leaf out of how his senior opening partner KL Rahul in terms of capitalising on fuller balls. “He needs to be a bit calm, he needs to spend a bit more time, if he will show some confidence on his defence then that’s when he’ll come across some shot playing deliveries.”
“It’s because the moment when you show some respect to the bowlers and you defend well then they’ll look forward to getting a wicket and gradually they’ll starting pitching the ball a bit up and that’s when you can play those drives. They way KL Rahul is playing, the way he is playing those drives on the overpitched deliveries, Yashasvi also needs to do the same.”
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy series is interestingly poised at 1-1 ahead of the Boxing Day Test, set to be played at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Thursday.
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