Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting on Thursday said he found India’s scoring rate during the Melbourne Test “a bit baffling”, and also questioned the value of Cheteshwar Pujara’s century.
A 170-run stand between Pujara and captain Virat Kohli put India in a dominant position in the third Test, with the visitors declaring at 443/7 after batting for 169.4 overs at a run rate of 2.61.
Dogged Pujara stroked 106 off 319 balls, while Kohli scored 82 off 204 balls, before they both fell soon after lunch on what until then had been a lifeless Melbourne pitch. None of India’s top five batsmen scored at a strike rate of more than 50.
Rohit Sharma was not out 63 after notching his 10th Test half-century when Kohli called a halt to the innings late in the day. Australia’s openers Marcus Harris and Aaron Finch then battled through to be eight without loss in six overs before stumps were called.
Ponting praised Pujara for scoring his second hundred of the series, but wasn’t sure of its impact.
“If India go on and win the game, it’ll be a great innings [but] if they haven’t got time to bowl Australia out twice...it could be what actually costs them the game,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.
“I think it’s always hard for India to push the run rate along when Pujara’s there.
“He’s just made another hundred, his second of the series, so he’s playing well and doesn’t really look like getting out. But he just locks himself in this little bubble where scoring doesn’t seem to faze him at all.
“They’ve got other guys in their side who are stroke-makers...but if those guys don’t come off, the scoring rate is always going to be hovering around that two runs an over mark, which makes it pretty hard to win Test matches, especially on flat wickets like we might have here.
“Even [after Pujara’s dismissal], it just seems like they haven’t got a lot of direction about what they’re trying to achieve. It looks like they want to bat long enough to only bat once, but just yet they haven’t got enough runs to do that.
“Obviously they’ve talked long and hard about what they want to do. It’s just a bit baffling to us,” he added.
Pujara, however, thinks that India have enough runs on the board on a pitch that’s not easy to bat on. He was dismissed off a Pat Cummins delivery that kept low. “Already today you can see the pitch has started deteriorating and there’s variable bounce on it,” he said.
“Our bowlers have been bowling well so I would say we have enough runs on the board,” he added.
With inputs from AFP
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