Pujara's chance to beat his blues

Michael Holding once made a telling statement about the business of picking an XI. Selection, he said, "is not about justice. It is about balance." Cheteshwar Pujara heads into the third Sri Lanka v India Test at the SSC looking for both: seeking equilibrium in his career after a 10-month free-fall and a slice of divine justice to get him back into the India XI.

India's growing injury list has meant that the team itself is looking for balance by making full use of whatever options are available for one last tilt at a rare series victory here in Sri Lanka. Twenty-two years since the last one, folks, in case you'd forgotten. Pujara has virtually been picked in the Indian XI by his captain in public for the third Test due to injury to opener M Vijay. India, who came to Sri Lanka with three openers, are now left with one specialist, KL Rahul, centurion from the P Sara Test, who also doubled up as part-time wicketkeeper as Wriddhiman Saha did in his hamstring. Going by the team's misfortunes in terms of injury on tour, there's a strong possibility team director Ravi Shastri could be driving the team bus on Friday morning, because the driver hurt his wrist just as they got onto Galle Road.

More seriously, the good news is that Pujara has done this stuff before. Stepping up to front the innings due to an openers' injury. In fact he averages 101. 5 as opener in his three Tests in the six months between November 2012 and March 2013. He first stepped in during the home series in England to cover for Gautam Gambhir in the second innings in Ahmedabad and once again turned up as stop-gap second innings opener for the the injured Shikhar Dhawan versus Australia after Dhawan's barnburner debut in Mohali. Pujara's scores as Test opener read: 41*, 28, 52 and 82*.

The only difference between the situation then and that of two years later is that the Pujara who opened for India in 2012-13 and the one who turns up in Colombo are not two different batsmen, but one cricketer attempting to find closure to a very trying life experience. When Pujara first opened for India it was not to prove his ability but on the basis of credentials already established. At the time, he was feted and recognised as a solid and reliable India No. 3, a worthwhile successor to Rahul Dravid. Between August 2012 and December 2013, Pujara scored 1483 runs in 23 innings, including six centuries and three fifties.

What followed after his 16-month glut was what can only be called Pujara's "blue period": three series and 20 innings - where he averaged 24.15 - against quality attacks who offered not only the discomfiture of pace but also lateral movement on demanding surfaces. For a batsman whose game is built of composure, a good defence and an ability to crank up his run-scoring tempo after getting settled in, early failures in New Zealand carried through to England and Australia. It was not that he did not get starts in his 20 innings, particularly at the start of the tours in England and Australia, he was just unable to knuckle down and follow through with bigger and more substantial scores.

In his first five innings in England, Pujara's scores read: 38, 55, 28, 43 and 24. In Australia, in his six innings he got: 73, 21, 18, 43, 25 and 21. It is not that Pujara did not try; it is merely that, on the scoreboard, he did not succeed. It is not that India did not try giving him a long rope, much like they are trying to do with Rohit Sharma currently. Twenty innings is a substantial enough number in a team that is walking the high wire, playing with six specialist batsmen. In his last innings for India in the Boxing Day Test, Pujara was sent down to No. 6, much like Rohit was bumped down at the P Sara. The man who occupied Pujara's old No. 3 spot in Melbourne 2014? KL Rahul, with whom he will most probably go out to open the Indian innings now.

"It was disappointing that I could not convert good starts into big scores," Pujara said about the Australia tour in an interview to Sportskeeda website in April. "I was batting well and feeling confident but somehow I did not kick on. At times, I played loose shots, and sometimes I got absolute rippers."

India A coach Rahul Dravid, however, believed "a player like Pujara will find the way". "He has got the desire, the hunger, he is looking to get better, he has got the technique, and he is keen to improve," Dravid said last month. "It is just matter of time before he comes back and gets a chance to play in the XI, and one or two scores will change things for him."

Pujara's induction into the XI as an opener, captain Virat Kohli said at the end of the P Sara game, was to give the team "more batting options to play around with".

His approach to Pujara's situation was both pragmatic and ruthless: telling Pujara about his stop-gap role was, Kohli said, "not difficult at all". "We have communicated this in the team before, that no one is playing in this team for personal glory or personal achievements in this tour… Eventually what you want to do is win a Test match. That should be your ultimate aim… Someone like Pujara, if he has to step in for the next game and miss out for the next, he will understand that it is the situation that demands for him to do so. And we need that balance in the next game, which he will provide if he opens for us in one-odd Test match. That's an understandable thing as a professional athlete."

Professional athletes learn how to rebuild their careers from a detritus of the type Pujara has had to deal with. He is said to be itching to get under his India helmet again and go out to open for India on the moon without oxygen if asked to. He will be going out on one of the best batting pitches in the subcontinent, a place where, it is joked, bowlers should ideally wear black bands and batsmen should carry tents with them. This will be Cheteshwar Pujara's base camp.