Book name- THE DIARY OF A CRICKETER’S WIFE: A VERY UNUSUAL MEMOIR

Author- Puja Pujara with Namita Kala

Published by- HarperCollins

Price- ₹799

Days after the loss to Australia in the 2023 World Test Championship final, Cheteshwar Pujara received a call from the chairman of the national selection committee. He was told that he had been dropped from the side for the West Indies tour. The official reason cited was that the selectors wanted to take a “younger side”. But he had actually been made a scapegoat for India’s poor performance in the final, though it remained a collective failure.

It turned out to be the last of Pujara’s 103 Test matches in his 13-year career. While the batsman remained calm when he broke the news to his wife, Puja was outraged. “I think you’re not being given your due respect, and I don’t think you should put up with it,” she burst out.

Cheteshwar, however, remained silent even when she broached the unthinkable — retirement. He refused to budge and wanted to continue playing for the love of the game and told his wife not to let her “blood boil every time” he “hit a low”.

Such intricate personal conversations and insights along with her experiences on various tours have been vividly portrayed in Puja Pujara’s ‘very unusual memoir’. Autobiographies by professional athletes are common but a cricketer’s wife documenting his husband’s career through her own eyes is rare. In that sense, the book is unique since it deals with Cheteshwar’s playing days’ peaks and troughs, personal sacrifices, struggles, vulnerabilities, and the pressures of dealing with the expectations of a cricket-crazy nation.

Puja recounts Cheteshwar’s agony when he was informed that he wouldn’t be part of the 2013 Champions Trophy squad. He had wanted to play all three formats at that stage. “He was ambitious, he was doing really well and was working very hard to achieve his aspirations. Yet, slowly and systematically, he was being branded as a test player on the grounds that his fitness was not great and that he did not run so well. Thus began his long and tortuous journey as a test specialist.”

The book also depicts the pain a cricketer has to endure if he fails to live up to his exalted standards. His failure in the 2021 WTC final against New Zealand had left him shattered. “I stood by helplessly and watched Cheteshwar struggle with himself... I stayed and quietly tip-toed round his grief,” she recalled.

The book also briefly deals with politics and ego clashes within the team. There’s an instance when there was no response from Cheteshwar after Puja informed him about an “effusive and touching” birthday greeting from one of the players on Instagram. She instantly knew it meant her husband was concealing something. Pestered, Cheteshwar finally revealed that the same player had wanted him to be dropped from the team for fitness issues.