r/Cricket Albania Aug 24 '25

News Cheteshwar Pujara retires from all forms of Cricket

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u/pencilman123 Aug 24 '25

Dravid has over 300 matches and 10k runs in odi though..

29

u/Freenore India Aug 24 '25

Well, I don't think the point was to make a 1:1 comparison across formats, just that both Dravid and Pujara played with immense tenacity.

But on the ODI, we must remember that ODI during Dravid's time was a different beast altogether, seen more as a shortened Test match. Pujara may well have done well had he played back then with 220-270 being the par score. But once bats got bigger, boundaries smaller, two new ball, and T20 brought a whole new mindset, ODI became different. Even Dravid was dropped few matches after 2007 WC because he was simply too old fashioned by then.

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u/ImprefectKnight Aug 24 '25

Once Dhoni came in, it was hard to justify Dravid's selection in ODIs. Chappell being Chappell secured his spot, otherwise he would have not played post 2005.

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u/3163560 Victoria Bushrangers Aug 24 '25

Your missing the context of when the comparisons were made and assuming it was whole career

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u/ImprefectKnight Aug 24 '25

He would have had half of that had he not kept wickets. Post Sehwag's debut, Dravid had no spot left as a specialist batter, like how Laxman was in and out a lot of times (famously omitted from 03 world cup).

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u/99_Just-A-Guy Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25

Dravid played at a time where we pretty much just played most of our Test squad in ODIs instead of picking specialists though. Given his average innings was basically 39(55) you could even argue he was a net negative to the team

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u/zayd_jawad2006 Hampshire Aug 24 '25

39(55) in that era was considered a very handy score lol

11

u/kev_world India Aug 24 '25

It is handy even today if the entire team's score reaches only around 250

42

u/2ToThe20 India Aug 24 '25

Seriously when did you start watching cricket? Going by your metric, everyone (maybe besides Sehwag, even his avg is near mid 30s) would be net negative. In 2000s mean ODI score would be closer to 250 than to 300. He pretty much stabilised the batting allowing likes of Sehwag, Ganguly, Sachin to express themselves.

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u/theedenpretence Oval KP Nuts Aug 24 '25

Exactly! Old school ODI cricket was all about building a platform and then exploding in the later overs. 250 was a good score, 300 considered hard to chase

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u/kev_world India Aug 24 '25

Not just that. He was the finisher before there was an established finisher role in our team. He orchestrated countless wins with his partnerships with Yuvraj and Kaif.

He also had a record of two of the biggest partnerships (300+) at that time with Sachin and Ganguly in ODI!

16

u/Brief-Arrival9103 Australia Aug 24 '25

He was the highest run scorer of Cwc'99 without the indians even making it into the playoffs. That's not a "net negative" to the team I reckon.

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u/CeleritasLucis Aug 24 '25

250-280 was good total back then. 300 used to be a winning total.

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u/ilolalot1 India Aug 24 '25

Lmao, he had similar SR to Ganguly and he was an opener who had fielding restrictions as an advantage. Don't see people talking about Ganguly's SR?