I don't watch every ball India play in Test Cricket. If I lived in the right time zone, I probably would. But I don't. Yesterday, as I watched Pujara resume his innings, I realized that I had watched a lot of Cheteshwar Pujara's batting. 1488 runs in 16 Tests. 26 innings, 9 of which have produced more than 50. 6 of which have produced more than 100. 4 of which have produced more than 150. 2813 balls faced in 26 innings. 127 balls faced per dismissal. A Test average of 67.
A lot of batting.
Some batsmen used their bats like magic wands, others use them like swords. Pujara uses his bat like a probe. His play is forensic. He plays the ball very late, right under his eyes. When Pujara bats, the surveillance of the cricket ball is total. Not an inch of flight is missed. Time and again at Johannesburg, Pujara would get forward or back, depending on the length, and then seemingly wait to receive the ball, his bat held apparently limply in his gloves, recoiling as the ball approached, the way slip catchers are trained to catch. The bat face always pointed down. Often, Pujara leaps off the ground when he's playing on the back foot. It looks ungainly at times. His arms are outstretched, the bat is held painstakingly vertical. The side on stance is sacrosanct. That small leap is a leap made in the interests of greater control and precious fractions of a second more, so that the ball may get just that extra bit of attention. The ball would often hit the bat and cause it to turn in Pujara's loose defensive grip. No matter. That ball was not going to cause any trouble because everything had been taken care off even before the ball met the bat.
For Pujara, batting is a side-on proposition. If he's turned around, playing inside out in defense, you know he's been beaten. He knows he's been beaten. It rarely happens. I first noticed the severity of Pujara's discipline in this matter during his 135 at Mumbai against Panesar on a wicket which turned from day 1. Panesar is an strong, accurate finger spinner. Ball after ball, Pujara would play forward, staying sideways on, gauging the line and the turn off the pitch to perfection, resisting Panesar's attempt to get him to play to leg, playing stubbornly with the break. He seemed to have a lot of time to play the ball off the pitch.
This immaculately organized defense is accompanied by an array of scoring shots all round the wicket. His preferred scoring areas are characteristic - square on the off side usually off the back foot, and in an arc between wide mid on and backward of square. Of course, balls outside leg stump are met with a deft leg glance, and half volleys outside off are met with firm off drives.
Pujara makes mistakes. That's why he gets out. But when he gets out, he probably knows exactly what he's done wrong even as he walks away off the square. He judged the length wrong, or failed to judge it altogether and got caught on the crease, or mistimed his attacking shot just a little bit. I bet he always knows.
In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke put forth put forth a small thought experiment. What if scientists had microscopes with which to see instead of eyes. With seeing "that most instructive of senses" so enhanced, scientists could see the essences of things. They would reach "nearer the discovery of the texture and motion of corporeal things". But this, Locke further observed, would also make it more difficult for scientists to communicate with other people. Scientists would cease to be men (everything was apparently male in Locke's day). They would become angels. "So that I doubt whether he and the rest of men could discourse concerning the objects of sight, or have any communication about colours, their appearances being so wholly different."
This was one of Locke's ways of explaining how our body defines our humanity and limits our human understanding.
Cheteshwar Pujara does not have microscopes for eyes and his wrists do not contain devices that measure the speed and location of the approaching cricketing ball with absolute certainty. But when he bats, sometimes it seems like he does.
At some point, most probably many times during his career, the parts of Pujara's painstakingly developed batting apparatus will stop functioning as smoothly as they are now. They can be fixed. But I hope that the way Pujara the batsman is built never changes. For when everything is working well and Pujara is wielding his forensic probe, examining the bowling and disposing each ball on its merits, the results are deadly.
May that never change.
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