Nagpur (Maharashtra): Cheteshwar Pujara, who has been India’s backbone in Test cricket in the last few years, said on Sunday that it was difficult to score runs in Nagpur as the wicket was on the slower side.
“On this wicket, it was difficult to score runs as it was on the slower side. It wasn’t easy to get boundaries and we had to rotate the strike, whenever we had got some opportunities. Overall, it was a tough pitch, where you might not get out but it was also difficult to score runs,” said the 29-year-old in the press conference held after close of play on day three.
The Saurashtra right-hander, who was clean bowled on 143 today, also lauded skipper Virat Kohli’s double ton, maintaining that Kohli performs well in all situations.
“See, he (Kohli) is a kind of player who performs well in all the formats of the game and the way he started off, if there were some other batsmen, I don’t think they could have started in the same way,” he said.
The third day of the Nagpur Test was all about Kohli, as the captain first scored his 19th Test century and then added yet another record to his decorated cricket book by slamming the fifth double hundred of his career.
India declared their innings at 610/6 after Rohit Sharma, too, reached triple-figure mark.
In their reply, Sri Lanka are at 21/1, trailing behind by a massive 384 runs. (ANI)