Pat Cummins Calls Cheteshwar Pujara the Toughest Opponent

Pat Cummins has spent a career hunting wickets, not handing out compliments. So when Australia’s Test and ODI captain pauses, thinks, and calls Cheteshwar Pujara the “toughest” Indian he’s ever bowled to, it lands with real weight.

The memories come flooding back. Adelaide. Melbourne. Sydney. Brisbane. The Border-Gavaskar epics of 2018-19 and 2020-21, when Pujara turned survival into an art form and Australia’s vaunted pace cartel into weary, hollow-eyed triers. Ball after ball. Session after session. Starc pounding in, Hazlewood nagging away, Cummins snarling through overs deep into the day – and Pujara just standing there, bat like a barricade.

In a recent promotional video for Prime Video Sport, Cummins was asked to do something deceptively simple: pick the toughest opponent he has faced from seven major cricketing nations – India, Pakistan, New Zealand, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the West Indies. No current stars, no flavour-of-the-month picks. His list, as it turned out, was a roll call of retired greats who once made his life miserable.

For India, there was no debate.

“India, I'm going to say, Pujara. Really hard to get out. Just like death by a thousand papercuts. Happy to face 100 dot balls if he wanted to. Not going to give you a chance,” Cummins said in the clip shared on social media.

That image fits perfectly with the numbers. Pujara played 25 Tests against Australia and churned out 2,074 runs at an average of 49.38. Nearly half of those – 993 runs – came in Australia, where visiting batters usually go to be found out, not immortalised. Three centuries, five fifties, a highest score of 193, and countless spells where he slowly drained the life out of fast bowlers who pride themselves on breaking opponents, not being broken by them.

It was that stubbornness, that refusal to blink, that defined Pujara’s India career. By the time he announced his retirement from international cricket last year, he had 7,195 Test runs in the bank at 43.6, with 19 hundreds and 35 fifties across 103 matches. He slipped into five ODIs as well, scoring 51 runs, but his legend belongs to the long game, to days where he made time itself feel like a weapon.

Cummins’ list, though, stretched well beyond India.

From New Zealand, he went back to a different era, to a batter who attacked the new ball rather than outlasted it. “From New Zealand, I played Brendon McCullum a couple of times when he was really going hard at the top of the order,” Cummins recalled. McCullum’s method was the polar opposite of Pujara’s, yet just as unsettling for a quick: no chance to settle, no rhythm, just relentless aggression.

Pakistan threw up an unexpected name for those who only know Cummins from the last few years. Not Babar Azam. Not Shaheen Shah Afridi. Not Haris Rauf. Instead, he reached back to the era of doosras and mystery spin.

“Pakistan, Saeed Ajmal. It was like the last ball of the over; I walked in, Saeed Ajmal just goes, and I went, what? Clean bowled. I have never seen anything like that,” Cummins said, recalling a moment that clearly left a mark. One ball. One blur. Stumps gone. Sometimes the toughest opponent is the one you barely have time to understand.

From England, Cummins went with Sir Alastair Cook, the metronome at the top of the order who built his reputation on endless concentration and unshakeable technique. South Africa’s slot belonged to AB de Villiers, the genius who could turn any length into a scoring opportunity and bend fields to his will. Sri Lanka’s toughest, in Cummins’ eyes, was Tillakaratne Dilshan, the inventive strokemaker who brought audacity to the top of the order. The West Indies pick was as brutal and inevitable as one of his drives: Chris Gayle, the left-hander who could make even the best fast bowler feel one misstep away from being launched into the stands.

Different styles. Different eras. One common thread. Every name Cummins chose has stepped away from international cricket. His toughest list is, in effect, a snapshot of a generation that tested him as he rose through the ranks, a group of players who shaped the bowler – and captain – he is now.

At the heart of it, though, sits Pujara. The man who didn’t flinch, didn’t chase, didn’t hurry. The man who turned 100 dot balls into a badge of honour. For an Australian fast bowler who thrives on intimidation and breakthroughs, it’s telling that the opponent he calls “really hard to get out” is the one who simply refused to go away.