Follow UsCheteshwar Pujara, who has not officially retired from Test cricket, last played for India in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 final against Australia at The Oval in London.
Wife of the famous Indian Test cricketer, Puja Pujara, has penned a book called ‘The Diary of a Cricketer's Wife’. In that book, Puja has revealed that Pujara overheard someone from the team set-up trying to keep him out of the side after an injury during the 2018-19 tour of Australia.
The incident she narrated in the book, though, is after the end of the second Test. In the first Test, Pujara hit a century in the first innings and followed that up with a half-century in the second. In the second game at Perth, though, he was able to score only 28 runs in both innings combined.
However, his injury had worsened, and it was doubtful whether he would play in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.
Revealing the truth now, almost seven years later, Puja, who was on the tour with Pujara, wrote in her book, “Cheteshwar made the most of his three-day break (between the second and the third Test) and did not step out of his room much. He alternated between resting his afflicted limb and getting his strained hamstring treated.”
“On the lone occasion when he did, he overheard someone engaged in an intense conversation on the telephone, stating that he did not want my husband to play in the coming match because he was unfit. It was an unpleasant incident. But Cheteshwar gave no sign that he had accidentally become privy to the said exchange. Neither did he tell anyone about Papa's medical condition,"she added.
So how did Puja come to know about it? She details this in her book: "I only learnt of the incident accidentally on Cheteshwar's birthday after the tour was over. It was around half-past-two in the afternoon, the lights were off, and the room was quite dark. Aditi was napping and Cheteshwar and I were reclining on our bed as I scrolled through our social media pages reading out birthday greetings.
“One message posted on Instagram was particularly effusive and touching. I read it out aloud to Cheteshwar, remarking, 'Such a sweet gesture—what a lovely message!' There was complete silence. He did not say a word. Puzzled, I looked up from my phone and caught a most peculiar expression on Cheteshwar's face—one that was simultaneously secretive and pitiful. I had no trouble translating his mind — it was his vintage you're-so-naïve-and-trusting look I had seen before and was therefore quite familiar with."
"What's wrong,' I asked. 'Nothing,' he said, at his taciturn best. But I was not buying it. I knew quite well that when Cheteshwar went completely quiet, it usually meant he was concealing something. It is a frequent occurrence. I usually learnt about on-field gossip and politics from other players' wives, never from him.”
“Throughout my marriage, Cheteshwar's description of his various trips was limited to three unvarying sentences: 'We had practice, a team meeting, and then I returned to the room.' Day in and day out, year after year, I had been treated to the same standard lines. He was ready to talk about everything but his professional life. There were times when I would wonder if he even knew what was happening in the world around him."
"'This guy you're praising,' commented Cheteshwar laconically, 'wanted me to be dropped from the team because of fitness issues.' I gaped at him. 'Why didn't you tell me earlier? Why did you go through it alone?' 'Such things happen,' he shrugged, 'and not everything deserves a reaction. I played and played well and that's what matters. You don't need to dwell too much on the incident. But it's important that you learn not to trust everything that takes place on social media.'"
However, despite all that went behind Pujara’s back, he fought like a lion from both the injury and the mental trauma of the injury and of insecurity of his place in the team, and became Player of the Series in India’s first Test series win in Australia.