Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar today said thatyoung Chiteshwar Pujara has got his basics right and the Saurashtra batsmancould be tried in limited overs of cricket.
"Something that certainly can be given a try, becausehe has got the basics right. If you have the basics right then expanding yourshot-making capabilities is not so much of a
problem," Gavaskar said when asked about Pujara scoringat a faster rate than Virender Sehwag during India's chase on the final day ofthe first Test against England here today.
"You have the licence to play lot more shots in thelimited overs cricket than in Test cricket. It is just a matter of confidence.He has been in the IPL teams... he hasn't really got an opening. Even there hebats down the order, where he has got to come in and start hitting the ball inthe air soon enough. That is not something that he is comfortable with,"he told NDTV
"What he showed by hitting the ball down the ground andgetting boundaries, he can also score at a fast pace," Gavaskar said aboutPujara who was adjudged
player-of-the-match for his unbeaten innings of 206 and 41in the series opener against England which India won comfortably by ninewickets.
Asked whether the Indians were able to exploit theconditions better than the visitors, Gavaskar said: "Indian pitches aregenerally very-very good to bat on the first couple of days, then they sort ofslow-down and have a bit of spin. Sometimes the ball keeps low. So you win thetoss and you bat first."
"You have the opportunity to put up a decent total onthe board and India did more than decent. They scored more than 500 runs.Batting first becomes an important aspect on Indian pitches."
On Indian bowlers' performance in comparison to theirEnglish counterparts, Gavaskar felt that the visitors bowled a bit short.
"England bowlers are perhaps not used to bowling withthe SG ball and that is one of the reasons they were not able to get the contrastswing which Umesh Yadav and Zaheer Khan were able to get," he said.
"Zaheer and Umesh were bowling a much fuller lengthwhile the English bowlers were bowling just short of length than they are usedto in England or on Australian surfaces. If you want to succeed as a bowler inIndia you got to bowl a much fuller length. You got to get the batsmancommitted on the front-foot, committed into playing attacking shots. That iswhere you can get wickets," Gavaskar insisted.
Gavaskar, meanwhile, dismissed the exchange of words betweenPragyan Ojha and Stuart Broad as a "storm in the cup".
"That was an over reaction," the former Indiacaptain said.
On the prospect of Harbhajan Singh making a comeback intothe Indian team, Gavaskar said: "He certainly seems to be very keen onmaking a comeback to the team and given that (Ravichandran) Ashwin was not aseffective as he is used to, Harbhajan may be sniffing a smallopportunity."
Asked whether India might go in with threespinners in the matches to come, Gavaskar said that was only possible if Indiagoes in with just five batsmen, which is quite unlikely to happen.