India’s first innings hero in the ongoing Melbourne Test, Cheteshwar Pujara feels the pitch is tough to bat on and they have enough total at the end of their first innings.

The visiting side had the slow-moving first innings as they scored 443/7 in 169.4 overs before the Indian skipper Virat Kohli decided to declare their innings to provide a short but uncomfortable spell of batting for the hosts before the stumps of day two.

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Pujara was the highest scorer in that innings where he played a hard-fought innings of 106 runs off 319 balls (10 fours). Pujara feels there was the big difference on the MCG pitch between the day one and day two of the Test match as the pitch is deteriorating rapidly with the time progress.

The Indian Test specialist batsman said, “I think so. It’s a tough wicket to score runs on. The first two days, if you look at the number of runs scored, its very less, but to score 200 in a day is a tough task. I think we have enough runs on the board and as we saw today the pitch has already started deteriorating. There’s variable bounce on it. When I was batting on it yesterday and today I felt there was a difference, and I don’t think its easier to bat now. From tomorrow I think it will get difficult to bat on. Our bowlers have been bowling well, so I would say we have enough runs on the board.”

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Pujara played a very patience innings to complete his 17th Test century. He had a brilliant 170-run third-wicket partnership along with the Indian skipper Virat Kohli (82 runs) that set the side to go for a good challenging first innings total. As the pitch has produced the very uneven bounce, Pujara feels each batsman needs to play a lot of balls to get set here.

Pujara said, “To get used to the pace is difficult. Sometimes you feel it is on the slower side, but the odd ball kicks up and I got hit on my finger. Luckily it is not that bad and I could bat, but I did have to try and get out of the way four of five times … and those were not short balls. Those were back-of-a-length balls and I got hit on my gloves, so as a batsman there’s always doubt when you play on such pitches. The ball I got out to, I felt I could not have done anything about it.

“You have to bat as per the wicket and the situation. On this wicket, each batsman had to play a lot of balls to get set. It was tough. If those couple of wickets had not fallen, I could have gone on to get 140-150 at the least, but that’s what Test cricket is about. You have to gauge the pitch and the situation and bat accordingly.”

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Currently, Pujara is the leading run-scorer in this Test series who has already hit two centuries in this series. The Indian top-order batsman feels the variable bounce will help the Indian bowlers.

Pujara added, “It has been a good tour for me, personally, but the biggest thing is that this Test remains very important for us. It’s 1-1 and everyone knows how important a result is. We’ve batted well but we have to focus on our game plan and get 20 wickets. The variable bounce will help our bowlers.”