There was a whisper in the cricketing fraternity in the early 2000s – a boy from Saurashtra had just scored a triple-hundred at the Under-14 level. Then there were sightings: the same boy scored a double-hundred against England at the Under-19 level. The whispers got more prominent as he began to torment bowling attacks on his placid home-ground in Rajkot, and almost forced officials to change the playing conditions, such was his run-making prowess at the Ranji level.
It was only a few years down the line that we came across small newspaper segments about the same boy with a squarer jawline and denser facial hair going by the name of Cheteshwar Pujara, scoring double-hundreds for breakfast and triple-hundreds for dinner at the Ranji level. After several years of being scoffed at for making runs on a flat Rajkot wicket, Cheteshwar Pujara started to seep into the minds of the selectors. In the minds of the India public, we had already found the natural successor to Rahul Dravid.
