Who doesn’t remember the mouth-watering battles between Cheteshwar Pujara and the Australian famed pace trio of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins? The Border-Gavaskar Trophy of 2018-19 and 2020-21 comes to mind when the right-handed batter just defended and defended, breaking the morale of Australia ball by ball. Hence, it was no surprise to see Cummins, the Test and ODI captain, wax lyrical about the now-retired Pujara and name him as the “toughest” Indian player he faced off against.
In a recent promotional video for Prime Video Sport, Cummins was asked to name the toughest players he played against, and he had to pick one from India, Pakistan, New Zealand, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and the West Indies.
Speaking of Pujara, he played 25 Tests against Australia, scoring 2,074 runs at an average of 49.38. Out of this 2074, 993 came Down Under, including three centuries and five fifties, with his highest score being 193.
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“India, I’m going to say, Pujara. Really hard to get out. Just like death by a thousand papercuts. Happy to face 100 dot balls if he wanted to. Not going to give you a chance,” said Cummins in a video shared on social media.
Speaking of Pujara, he announced his retirement from international cricket last year, scoring 7,195 runs in 103 Tests for India at an average of 43.6, including 19 hundreds and 35 fifties. He also represented the Men in Blue in five ODIs as well, scoring 51 runs.
When it came to New Zealand, Cummins named Brendon McCullum, the current white-ball coach of England. “From New Zealand, I played Brendon McCullum a couple of times when he was really going hard at the top of the order,” said Cummins.
Who all did he name?
When it comes to Pakistan, Cummins has battled against the likes of Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and others, but the toughest opponent for him remains Saeed Ajmal.
“Pakistan, Saeed Ajmal. It was like the last ball of the over; I walked in, Saeed Ajmal just goes, and I went, what? Clean bowled. I have never seen anything like that,” Cummins said.
From England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and the West Indies, Cummins named Sir Alastair Cook, AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Chris Gayle, respectively.
However, it is worth noting that Cummins’ list only featured players who have called time on their international careers.