India’s dependable Test specialist, Cheteshwar Pujara has never imagined his life apart from cricket since his young age owing to his father’s passion for the game. He was born into a middle-class family who saw his father’s discipline guiding him being a successful cricketer going forward. Senior Pujara played six first-class matches from 1976-1980 for Saurashtra.
Cheteshwar’s father was a clerk in Indian railways in Rajkot and identified his son’s talent with the bat when he was playing gully cricket. Cheteshwar witnessed some tough times during his younger days, as he was only allowed to participate in the tennis ball cricket as a wicketkeeper. However, he was never allowed to bat, as his father thought that the difference in the bounce of the tennis ball as compared to the season ball would affect his son’s batting.
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Despite being a Gujarati, who loves their Navratri festival which has nine nights of dandiya and Garba, Cheteshwar was denied playing dandiya as the sticks could injure him. Although he lost his mother quite early, he remembers she buying him an INR 1500 bat and then paying the store in instalments whenever she could.
Pujara’s mother also sewed his pads as the full-size ones didn’t fit him properly. She has complete belief in her son and had the conviction that Cheteshwar will play for India one day. Her faith boosted Cheteshwar’s confidence when he started playing cricket in his early days.
Cheteshwar has scored 5840 runs in 77 Tests at an average of 48.66 with 18 centuries in the longest format of the game, and a total of 15705 runs in 202 FC matches with 50 ton under his belt. He is also one of the highest-paid Test cricketers in the country; he has realized that no other spiring cricketer in Rajkot should struggle to get amenities for which he worked so hard for.
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Therefore, Pujara and his father have set up a cricket academy from scratch — helping the budding cricketers with all the coaching and infrastructure they need to succeed. His father has played a crucial role in establishing the academy by overseeing the entire construction, even supervising and bringing over truckloads of black soil.
