'I think he overextended his stay': Former India player makes bold statement on Cheteshwar Pujara's retirement

Former India cricketer Robin Uthappa has shared his opinion on Cheteshwar Pujara’s recent retirement from all forms of cricket. Pujara announced his retirement last month after not getting picked in Test cricket for two years. He last played for India in the final of the ICC World Test Championship in 2023.

Uthappa believes that Pujara stayed in the game longer than he should have and could have announced his retirement a little earlier. Uthappa praised Pujara’s achievements but said he should have retired after he was not selected for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2024-25.

“I think he overextended his stay a little bit. I think it was communicated to him that he will not be considered anymore and this England tour was the final straw. It seemed very bleak for Indian cricket to go back to him, Rahane, at the start of a new cycle. I reckoned when he didn’t get picked in that Australia tour, he could have called it time. But obviously, it is very hard,” Uthappa said on YouTube.

Uthappa lauds Pujara’s contributions

Pujara was one of India’s most dependable batters in Test cricket, scoring 7,195 runs in 103 matches with 19 centuries. However, in the last couple of years, he was not part of the national team plans due to the emergence of young players like Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Uthappa also shared a story from domestic cricket to highlight Pujara’s love for batting. He recalled a first-class match between Karnataka and Saurashtra in 2009-10 where Pujara scored a triple century. Uthappa said that Pujara was obsessed with not getting out.

“I remember it was a first-class game in 2009-10, it was Karnataka versus Saurashtra and he got a triple hundred. He was batting 200-odd end of day’s play. I went early in the morning to have a hit. This guy comes and rocks up at 7:30 in the morning after having scored a double hundred and batted the same amount of time that I batted before going into bat for the game. For him as a personality, he was obsessed with batting and being not out,” he said.

The biggest moment in Pujara’s illustrious career came when he helped India win their maiden Test series in Australia in 2018-19. He also helped them retain the trophy in the next tour in 2020-21.