Is Pujara the new Wall?

Triple tons don't happen everyday, but Cheteshwar Pujara seems to have made a habit of it now. The elegant Saurashtra right-hander scored his second consecutive triple century in the West Zone leg of the National U-22 tournament on Monday which has brought the limelight on him.

Pujara, himself, knows it's "a great achievement", but it's his quiet nature that doesn't allow him to go ga-ga over the feat. "I came in at No.3 in both the matches and was happy to stay at the wicket for such long periods of time," Pujara told TOI from Rajkot, where he scored 308 against the Mumbai U-22 team.

While against Mumbai, Pujara batted for 539 minutes and played 379 balls, against Maharashtra, he had scored 386 off 696 minutes. "What makes me happy is that in both the cases, I batted for two days at a stretch," said Pujara.

That's something which Rahul Dravid used to specialise in at one point of time, but Pujara is in no mood to get into a discussion, which equates him to the Wall of Indian cricket. "Dravid is a great player and I am a huge of fan of him. But it's not for me to decide whether I am the man who will replace Dravid," Pujara said.

However, Debu Mitra, the Saurashtra coach who has groomed Pujara for the past four seasons, feels that much like Dravid, it's Pujara's defence which makes him such a good player. "If you have a good defence, you've won half the battle. This boy has a sound defensive technique and enormous powers of concentration," Mitra said.

Pujara believes that his powers of concentration have a lot to do with his habit of meditation everyday. "I pray for half-an-hour everyday," the shy 22-year-old added.

The chairman of the national selection committee, K Srikkanth, too, pointed out that they are following Pujara with a lot of interest.

"Scoring two triple hundreds in any form of cricket is a great achievement. I've seen him bat in the A Test against New Zealand and the guy looks extremely talented. We'll watch him keenly during the Challengers as well in Cuttack," Srikkanth said.

Pujara, the Man-of-the-Series in the 2006 U-19 World Cup, said: "The Challengers will be a great platform for me to show my one-day skills."

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