Cheteshwar Pujara’s wife Puja, made some staggering revelations in her book “The Diary Of A Cricketer’s Wife: A Very Unusual Memoir”, narrating her husband’s journey in becoming one of the most reliable Test batters the nation has produced. While Pujara did become the new Mr. Dependable for the team in the whites, the past couple of years saw his career graph go down, with the team looking at younger alternatives. However, one can still not forget the performances he produced in Australia, especially during the 2018-19 tour, which saw India secure a first-ever Test series win Down Under.
However, on that series, there were also talks of Pujara being dropped from the team. While the batter wasn’t supposed to know about this conversation, he overheard a talk on the phone, and was understandably shaken.
Pujara’s wife had to work hard to draw this revelation from the cricketer, and she also wrote about it in her book. However, the couple decided against naming the person who had wanted Pujara to be dropped from the team, ensuring no controversy is created.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, both Pujara and his wife opened up about this particular excerpt from the book that made headlines.
“The idea to write that incident was not to describe it. The idea was how he kept his calm and didn’t get affected, showed courage and resilience. The one intention wasn’t to malign anyone, that is not the intention. The intention was to inspire everybody,” Pujara’s wife said.
“I don’t think he knows about it,” Pujara’s said when asked if the person being described in the incident knows about it being written in the book.
Puja also intervened and said: “I don’t think anyone knows. The purpose is just a 2-line thing and not what has been highlighted.”
Pujara then explained that the intention behind writing the episode wasn’t to expose anyone, hence, the name of the person wasn’t mentioned in the book.
“The person’s name is not there in the book for a reason. If we wanted to expose someone… I don’t want to dwell too much into it, yes I was disappointed about what was said. But, at the same time, you move on, you look at the bigger picture. When you are representing the country, your job is to win matches for the Indian team. I had a job at hand. That was our first every victory on Australian soil. When I was playing Melbourne Test match, my focus was how can I contribute to the team’s success. I was in good form. There was a bit of a niggle. I ended up scoring a hundred and the team won that match. Everything settled down. My thought process was to create history with Team India,” he said.
“There were a lot of things at stake, my father wasn’t well. There were a lot of thoughts when I was going to play the Sydney Test but at the same time, but I knew Puja was looking after my father. So, I was relieved,” Pujara asserted.
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