Away from IPL, ‘Don’ Cheteshwar Pujara revels in Times Shield

(Contributed by Gaurav Gupta, S Sudarshanan and Dhananjay Roy)
At a time when most of India’s batsmen are getting a chance to show off their wares in the Indian Premier League (IPL), in the process, strengthening their claim for the No. 4 batting slot in the Indian team, Cheteshwar Pujara quietly travelled to Mumbai, turning out for Indian Oil in the Times Shield for their clash against BPCL.
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On Wednesday, veteran opener Wasim Jaffer posted a picture with Pujara, captioning it: “2 proud Indians & IOCians @ Western Railway Cricket Stadium, Lower Parel.” India’s Test star made 74, which helped Indian Oil gain the all-important first-innings lead.
Sharing with TOI why the Times Shield is close to his heart, Pujara said: “I started playing in the Times Shield before I made my debut in the Ranji Trophy. I joined Indian Oil along with Rohit Sharma (in 2006), and Ajinkya Rahane too joined at the same time. As a youngster, I learnt a lot when someone like Wasim Jaffer, who was the king of the domestic circuit and was then an India player, shared his experiences in the IOC dressing room. The Times Shield gave me great experience.”
“Most importantly, the Times Shield gave me the experience and confidence to hit big hundreds in first-class cricket.”
Not surprisingly, his penchant for scoring hundreds earned him the nickname ‘Don’ in the IOC team.
Mahela’s innovative law ‘suit’
Mumbai Indians' coach Mahela Jayawardene sure has his own ways of making players realise their folly. Starting last season, he introduced the ‘Emoji Suit’, which has to be worn by the player who fails to keep up with deadlines as a penalty.
In the Netflix series ‘Cricket Fever: Mumbai Indians’, the Sri Lankan is seen saying, “A player has to wear this till someone else misses their flight, is not on time or forgets his travel kit or something else.”
The dress is full of emojis of some of the MI players.
Suryakumar Yadav was the first to wear this funnily-designed dress, which was dark blue in colour, last season as he had missed his travel gear. The team’s conditioning coach Paul Chapman sympathised with him saying that Surya’s travel gear had not returned in time from the laundry. The first player to be penalised in this manner this season is pacer Barinder Sran.
‘CSK a little bit wiser... 12 months on’
While Chennai Super Kings’ superlative feats in the IPL have earned them plaudits, observers have also pointed out that their squad is a bit of a ‘Dad’s Army’ with many players, including key personnel, being 35 and above.
Skipper MS Dhoni is 37, Dwayne Bravo 35, Imran Tahir 39 and Shane Watson 37.
CSK coach Stephen Fleming, though, chose to look at the positive side of things.
“Of course, the talk is about the team getting older, but from my point of view, they are a little bit wiser… 12 months wiser,” Fleming said.