County Championship
Rizwan wishes to have focus and concentration like Pujara in red-ball game
|| CF DESK ||
As a red-ball player, Pakistan wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan aspires to have the focus and concentration levels of his County teammate Cheteshwar Pujara.
With two hundreds and as many double hundreds in his Sussex County Championship Division 2 campaign, Pujara has made a strong case for a Test comeback.
The Indo-Pak pair had a 154-run partnership against Durham earlier this month, and their united team has gotten a lot of favorable attention on social media.
Rizwan, who was named the ICC Player of the Year for 2021, rates Pakistan's Younis Khan and Fawad Alam very highly when it comes to batting with unwavering concentration but he has now added Pujara to the list.
"He is a very nice and loving guy. And his concentration and focus too... If you get a chance to learn something, you should do it.
"In terms of concentration levels and I told this to the coaches here too. In my whole career, the players with most focus, concentration are Younis bhai, Fawad Alam and his (Pujara's),” Rizwan said.
"Pujara is second on my list and Fawad Alam on three in terms of pure concentration and focus. I rate these three players very highly,” he added.
Regular white-ball cricket can affect your discipline in the longer-format and Rizwan said advice from Pujara helped him on that front.
“Pujara, I had a chat with him after I got out early. He told me a few things and one of them was to play close to the body. And as everyone knows, we have been playing white-ball cricket consistently over the past few years and play a bit away from our body." he said.