Being Cheteshwar Pujara is difficult. As a public figure, when your image eternally oscillates between that of a hero and a villain, there are chances that you will drown in self-doubt. But to Pujara’s credit, he has been fairly successful in shouldering arms to all unwarranted wisdom.

He needs to do that one more time, as he pads up for IPL 2021. For the last six years, he was exiled to the other side of the boundary rope of the world’s most popular cricket tournament while most of his India teammates bathed in its glamour and glory.

It’s not that Pujara — a champion of Tests — needs a stamp of approval from cricket’s shortest format to deem his career a success, but one assumes that as a cricketer, he dislikes being kept away from one of its contemporary challenges. And so he put his name in the IPL 2021 auction, where he was recruited by the Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

But then Pujara is prejudice’s favourite child. Many, including pundits and the common man, believe that CSK selected him only as a mark of respect for his exploits in the Test arena. In other words, he is not good enough to be in the IPL on his merit as a batsman. There’s this perception that though in the squad, CSK might not play him and so he would do good to look for a County stint instead.

However, the sympathy seems misplaced. A closer look at Pujara’s profile, that is going beyond his “Test specialist” tag, reveals that he is certainly not the proverbial chalk to IPL’s cheese.

Pujara has played 64 T20s in his career thus far, scoring 1356 runs at a strike rate of 109.35. Is it that bad? In IPL 2020, Rishabh Pant had a strike rate of 113.95, Shubman Gill had 117.96, Virat Kohli 121.35 and Pujara’s CSK captain, MS Dhoni, batted with a strike rate of 116.27.

Pujara cannot play a blinder, they say. But his only T20 century happens to be a knock of 100 not out off 61 balls, playing for Saurashtra in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match against Railways in 2019. Strike rate? 163.93. That, by the way, was the first hundred by a Saurashtra player in T20s.

Here’s another one from the archives: In a Ranji Trophy quarter final match against Karnataka in 2013, Pujara made 352 off 427 balls. At one stage during the innings, he was batting on 261 off just 275 balls.

Agreed, his IPL record looks ordinary — 390 runs from 22 innings at an average of 20.52. But his strike rate of 99.74 is not miles behind decency. Also, in those 22 innings, five times he batted at No.5 or below.

So Pujara, you see, is not from Mars in the world of T20s.

Dilip Vengsarkar, a former India captain, explained it in a simpler way. “I always believe that a good Test cricketer will be able to adjust whether it’s the ODIs or T20s. But that cannot always be said about a good T20 player. It’s a shame that he didn’t get a team in the IPL in the last six years,” Vengsarkar told The Telegraph.

“I don’t think his strokeplay is limited, he has all the shots. And who says he can’t hit sixes? He can hit sixes. You can’t hit sixes against fast-bowling all the time in Test cricket. Just because he doesn’t hit them often in Tests, doesn’t mean he can’t hit them,” Vengsarkar added.

Pujara has hit 158 fours and 20 sixes in his T20 career.

But all said, fact is, it’s difficult being a Cheteshwar Pujara, it’s easier being a Glenn Maxwell.