Pat Cummins Names Cheteshwar Pujara as Toughest Opponent

Pat Cummins has spent a decade trading blows with some of the finest batters of his era. When he was finally asked to pick the toughest of them, one name from India came out without hesitation: Cheteshwar Pujara.

Not Virat Kohli. Not Rohit Sharma. Pujara.

For Australian fans, the memories are still raw. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney in 2018-19. Brisbane in 2021. Long, punishing days in the dirt as Pujara batted and batted, turning Australia’s vaunted pace attack into weary silhouettes by stumps. Every leave, every block, every dead bat felt like another brick in a wall that refused to crack.

In a promotional video for Prime Video Sport, Cummins was asked to name the toughest opponent he had faced from a list of cricketing powerhouses: India, Pakistan, New Zealand, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the West Indies. 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 description could be the soundtrack to two Border-Gavaskar series that defined both men. Pujara played 25 Tests against Australia, scoring 2,074 runs at an average of 49.38. Nearly half of those, 993 runs, came in Australia, where visiting batters are supposed to be exposed, not exalted. He made three centuries and five fifties there, with a highest score of 193, each innings chiselling away at Australian belief.

Those numbers sit inside an even larger body of work. Pujara, who announced his retirement from international cricket last year, walked away with 7,195 Test runs for India from 103 matches at an average of 43.6. Nineteen hundreds, 35 fifties, and a reputation as the last of Test cricket’s pure marathon men. His ODI career was brief — five matches, 51 runs — but his legacy was always going to be painted in whites, not coloured kits.

Cummins’ list, interestingly, turned into a roll call of retired greats. No active players, no current rivalries stoked. Just a nod to those who have already stepped off the international stage.

From New Zealand, he went back to the days when a fearless opener set the tone for a generation.

“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. Anyone who watched McCullum charge down the pitch at fast bowlers will understand why a quick might still remember those brief, brutal exchanges.

Pakistan brought a different kind of challenge. Cummins has faced Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and others from a nation that never seems to run out of talent. Yet his mind went to a magician with the ball, not the bat.

“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,” he said.

One ball, one moment, lodged firmly in the memory of a fast bowler who has seen almost everything.

From England, he chose Sir Alastair Cook, the relentless accumulator who ground down attacks over a decade at the top of the order. South Africa brought AB de Villiers, the man who could turn any delivery into a scoring option and any field into a puzzle he seemed to solve before the bowler let go of the ball.

Sri Lanka’s representative was Tillakaratne Dilshan, an opener who attacked from ball one, sweeping, scooping and slicing in ways that unsettled rhythm and field settings alike. For the West Indies, Cummins went with Chris Gayle, the imposing left-hander whose presence alone can change the mood of a game before he has even taken guard.

Across continents and formats, the list reads like a snapshot of a generation: Cook’s discipline, de Villiers’ innovation, McCullum’s intent, Dilshan’s audacity, Gayle’s power, Ajmal’s craft.

And yet, when Cummins thinks of the toughest Indian he faced, his mind goes not to flair or fireworks, but to a man who was willing to face 100 dot balls without blinking. A batter who treated every delivery like a small battle in a much longer war.

For Pujara, now retired from the international stage, that might be the most fitting tribute of all: the Australian captain, a world champion fast bowler, still feeling every one of those thousand papercuts.