With India vs Australia edging closer, here's who Pujara picked as the toughest he's faced

Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara has named the toughest bowler he has ever faced on the cricketing pitch. During a chat with ESPNcricinfo, Pujara was asked about the toughest bowler he has faced in his career so far, to which the 34-year-old replied by picking Australia's Test captain Pat Cummins. Pujara and Cummins are all set to come face-to-face against each other during the upcoming four-match Test series between India and Australia next month. 

In the same conversation, Pujara was asked to name a batter from the past he would like to have batted with. Pujara named West Indies legend Brian Lara and picked Australia's Glenn McGrath when asked about a former bowler he would want to face. When questioned about his best innings in the longest format of the game, the Saurashtra batter picked his 92-run knock against Australia in Bengaluru in 2017. 

Pujara regains form in Test cricket

Pujara recently scored his first Test century in four years during the second match against Bangladesh. It was Pujara's fastest-ever hundred in the longest format and his first Test century in 52 innings. His last hundred came in January 2019 during the Border-Gavaskar series against Australia. Pujara's 19th century had 13 boundaries, which he scored at a strike rate of 78.46. Earlier, he was dismissed for 90 off 203 balls during the first innings of the same Test match. 

Pujara was dropped from the Indian Test team last year after he failed to perform consistently with the bat. Pujara joined Sussex for the County Championships and regained his form, leading to his re-inclusion in the Indian Test team for the one-off match against England in July 2022. Pujara also came back and played for Saurashtra in Ranji Trophy to further improve his game, which was visible during the Test series against Bangladesh late last year. 

India’s Test squad for the first two Tests against Australia: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R. Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja (subject to fitness), Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.

Image: AP