IND vs AUS: R Ashwin names India's star batters who are 'not celebrated enough'

India will be hosting Australia in the second Test, of the four-match series, which gets underway on February 17 (Friday). Cheteshwar Pujara, India's No. 3 batter, will be playing his 100th Test and become only the 12th Indian to enter the 100-Test club. He will become the secondactive Indian player to achieve the feat after Kohli (105 Tests).

Ahead of the second Test, in the national capital, R Ashwin lauded Pujara. He, however, pointed out --in his column for ESPNCricinfo -- that Pujaraand even Murali Vijay, who recently retired from international cricket,are not celebrated enough.

Ashwin said, "M Vijay, according to me the greatest opener for India outside of Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag, and Puji are quite similar in that they haven't been celebrated enough. They also had some of the most hilarious arguments. They used to do the most difficult job in Test cricket - play out the new ball in testing conditions, as we tend to need to do whenever we go abroad - so it is par for the course to have a few eccentricities emerge from that kind of partnership."

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Further, the wily off-spinner Ashwin hailed Pujara's stubbornness, which has broken down the best of the attacks in the recent past. In this regard, he said, "Pat Cummins bowls good ball after good ball, changing the angles, trying a bouncer, trying a sucker ball, but all he gets from Puji is the leave or the dead defence. Actually I don't recall thinking Puji had a great defence when I first saw him, but his stubbornness is such that he has broken down the best of the attacks with his defence."

"Most batters add to their game when they are successful or cut out some elements when they are failing, but Puji keeps trusting his method. You can't convince him to change. I used to use a Tamil nickname for him with Shankar Basu, our previous trainer: Mirugam, the beast. Just like a beast focuses single-mindedly on its prey, Puji focuses on batting," he added.

Pujara has had a glittering career in the red-ball format. In 99 Tests, he has 7,021 runs at an average of 44.15 with 19 tons and 34 half-centuries. He will aim for a memorable outing on his 100th Test and take India to a 2-0 scoreline with another impressive win in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.