Follow UsRohit Sharma, who recently retired from Test cricket, has opened up about an episode involving Cheteshwar Pujara and Nathan Lyon during Australia's tour of India in 2023. Going into the third Test in Indore, 2-0 up, both India and Australia for gunning for a victory for different reasons.
India needed some quick runs after being skittled out for just 109 in the first innings, but managed to restrict Australia to 197. With runs of the essence, Pujara and Axar Patel were happy to keep blocking and take the runs as they came.
That is when Rohit sent Ishan Kishan out to deliver a message to the batters to get a move on. Pujara responded immediately, smashing a six off Lyon over mid-on, leaving the dressing room in splits.
“We wanted to get Nathan Lyon off the track a little bit. We wanted to get some runs quickly. We probably were looking at declaring or something. We were like... ‘no, something needs to change now. Maybe, a message would do good’. The entire time, he was bowling with mid-on up. I was like, he's not that good of a bowler to keep mid-on up," Rohit said at the launch of The Diary of a Cricketer’s Wife, authored by Pujara’s wife, Puja.
"I know it was a challenge, the pitch was turning square, but we needed to get runs quickly. So I had to send Ishan."
Pujara eventually scored 59 off 142 deliveries as India eventually lost the Test by nine wickets, but went on to win the series 2-1 after the fourth Test in Ahmedabad ended in a draw.