The call that most cricketers in their mid-30s fear was given to India's perennial No. 3 Cheteshwar Pujara a few years ago following their defeat to Australia in the 2023 World Test Championship final. He was informed online by the top selector that he was not included in their desire for a younger Test team. In contrast to other seniors who were equally out of form, he did not receive the long rope despite having played more than 100 Tests. Pujara, who had experienced many failures and victories, was injured. As befitted his disposition, he fell silent.
However, his wife Puja, who was a keen observer and Sherpa of Pujara's difficult cricketing trip, did not. Her indignation erupted into sharp rhetorical questions: Why was Cheteshwar supposed to take responsibility for India's loss? Why should you subject yourself to such criticism? Why don't you end it now? Both were aware that there were no solutions.
Then Puja made a statement that would later serve as the basis for a book she would write in the future: “You are not the only one who is going through these highs and lows. We, as your family, are equally affected by it.”
Two years later, the situation at the Pujara household when he was discarded appears in the pages of the unique sports book "The diary of a cricketer's wife" (HarperCollins). The book is titled "A very unusual memoir" on the cover, but it would be better to include "honest" to the tagline.
Sports venues have shown insensitivity by treating athletes' partners like props. Known by the fairly simplistic and contemptuous collective word WAGs, the Wives and Girlfriends are frequently the bouncing board and support system of sporting superstars.
On game days, they are supposed to make proper reactions for the game situation while seated in VVIP stadium boxes. They had a little role in the lavish film Indian Cricket, but there are no dialogues. The crucial female voice in men's cricket is now documented in a book.
The book is something that the Pujaras are eager to discuss. Wives' and other family members' roles are rarely thoroughly explored, according to Puja. “We are always given this glamorous role when that is not the case. Behind the smiles and cheering in the stadium, there are 20,000 thoughts in our head. They keep switching the cameras to the spouses. And that’s where the story ends, right? Nobody follows up or nobody hears from the spouse also much after that,” she told The Indian Express.
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Readers of Puja's book are introduced to a society in which the males of the family are never present. It provides an insight into the lives of women who, at times, lead solitary lives when the only companions they have are anxiety and fear.
The wives are left to face the everyday struggles of raising children and being the first — and sometimes the only — responders to elder's medical emergencies while the cricketers are praised as gladiators. They frequently don't even have the choice to talk to their cricket partners about their issues. What if it upsets the men who are subjected to the irrational demands of a country obsessed with cricket?
The book claims that this is the reason Puja kept her husband in the dark about his father's heart condition throughout that historic 2018–2019 Australian series. When India won their first series in Australia, Pujara had amassed three hundreds in four Test matches, while Puja was holding the fort at home.
It was 2:30 am in Rajkot, Pujara's home, and with the second Test in Perth starting in a few hours, Puja's phone rang at that ungodly hour. Her daughter was in the cradle next to her bed, yet to celebrate her first birthday.
From the first floor of their house, her father-in-law called, suddenly feeling uneasy due to a heart condition. Puja called her husband's cricketer-friend Kuldeep, and she also called his siblings and other family members to take care of her daughter while she went to the hospital, where the doctor would later recommend "a heart ablation procedure."
She was sleepless and anxious when Pujara called her before the game as he had done for years. Puja had to be normal. That delicate moment of deception is brilliantly captured in the book. “The second Test was beginning that very morning, so I freshened up, took a short nap and woke up in time to wish Cheteshwar luck for the match. I carefully omitted all mention of the events of the previous night… ‘How’s the hamstring,’ I asked casually. ‘Fine,’ he answered, insouciantly. ‘Best of luck for the match,’ I wished him, with a spurious attempt at jollity. ‘Thanks,’ he replied, distractedly, his mind already on the game ahead,” Puja writes.
Pujara was informed about his father's condition and the upcoming surgery in Mumbai following the game. The final Test match in Sydney fell on that date. Pujara was battling the Australian bowlers while Puja and her father-in-law were traveling to Mumbai. Her husband had scored a hundred by the time she arrived at the hospital.
According to the book, Puja noticed hospital staff using their phones to watch the India-Australia match as she was in the elevator. They had no idea that the batsman they were closely monitoring was thinking about their hospital. The play for the day was done when the operation was finished. Pujara was undefeated on 130. He ended up scoring 193 the following day. The Australian stronghold had collapsed with Pujara leading India’s charge.
Puja waited for the national hero to return home, but cricket's uncertainties once again left her perplexed. In the book, she recounts another of those lengthy chats with her husband. “A vacation? A teeny-weeny break — as a treat for all the sleepless nights I had endured? These dreams lasted till Cheteshwar’s next phone call. He had already booked his tickets to travel to Kanpur for Saurashtra’s quarter-final game,” Puja writes.
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For Puja, that was nothing new. Pujara had earlier missed his daughter's birth due to another Ranji game.
Pujara, who isn't a regular member of the Indian squad, makes an effort these days to make up for his extended absences. He sends his daughter off at school and will take a "back seat" in the coming days if Puja decides to launch a new business or other endeavor.
Puja mentions Pujara's recognition of her contribution to his career and talks about how "everything has been worth it" because of the satisfaction of "being part of someone equally."
To support her argument, she refers back to the 2018–19 Australia series. “Though I did not travel to Australia, just those raw emotions of fans gives you warmth and love. No matter how small or big a part you have played, it just feels so, so special. I feel like it’s my victory as well. The warmth you see everywhere you travel, it just feels there’s so much gratitude,” she says.
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