I am totally stunned by this young lad from Saurashtra and equally so with the phrase ‘The wall 2.0′ which I cannot quite remember who coined that on Soulberry’s blog.

I remember first reading about him in a discussion in cricket guru’s and Soulberry’s blog. SB revisits Cheteshwar Pujara back then and today Ottayan here reckons that it is time to forget Yuvraj and give Pujara the right to have the first shot in International cricket during the England series.

Pujara first came into the spotlight by hammering 306 not out for Saurashtra in an Under-19 match against Baroda in 2001.

He was 12 years old then when most kids at his age would be more than content with life in their excitement to show their first strands of puberty to their peers.

Puberty aside.

What was stunning about him was the levels of concentration and application he had at that age.

What followed over in his teenage years was the three double hundreds he scored against Maharashtra, Mumbai and England in the junior circuits.

And there were a zillion other performances all the way to the U-19 World cup, where he was the man of the series, to the Afro-Asian cup.

Just before the start of the domestic season this year in India, I was excited at following the proceedings this time around. With some of the great distinguished ones all set to fade into the sunset, it was open season, a window of opportunity for the ones playing in the domestic circuit, one which could really inspire them to prove a point that they belong to the bigger league.

Pujara is now one of the front-runners ramming his way this season with some mind blowing performances. Three triple hundreds! Add to that a 189 and a 176 and no wants to count his fifties.

The popular sentiment among folks around the world was on the notion of how India with a cricket crazy billion number population could never blood a world beating team like what Australia has or the West Indies had. Much of that lied in our complex, wide domestic political system and totally incompetent and nepotist selection ‘poop’ systems that plagued India in the not-so-far distant past. It still does with some marginal improvements.

As a nation which was basically 500 plus individual Kingdoms, comprising of people with such varied commonalities and culture within each of those Kingdoms, it is a miracle by itself that for the last 50 plus years, India stands as one of the largest functioning democracies in the world. Not being a nation that can boast on sheer Sq.ft size, it is daunting to look at India having 28 states with more fractioned states being formed each year due to political aspirations of the wicked.

That representation has naturally spilled on to cricket, where perhaps we have the largest number of state teams playing in a cricketing system, anywhere in the world. I am of the view that the number of state teams be reduced/combined in order that cricket can be managed effectively for India to find the best and managing so many of these micro-systems takes a toll to do justice to the job.

But it is not like it cannot be done with such a large cricketing system in its current format.

If Indian cricket has to function well then, it needs to pump in big money into the domestic circuits for each state and have strong leadership. Big money is there but is not being used. Strong leadership is still being defined.

In the not-so-distant past, selectors had their job done easy by nepotist intentions and their personal affiliations to the zones and states they could follow. It was a daunting task then to follow all and resources, money were few. At least that was the only excuse they had.

The ICL in a way did a world of good by helping them weed the weak.

The biggest welcome change happened during Dilip Vengsarkar’s period, when perhaps for the first time in the history of Indian cricket, the players that got into the national team where the ones who were the top consistent performers in the domestic circuit. The results which came for the national side was more than satisfactory and the least bit surprising.

When boards like Cricket Australia start learning from the Indian boards on marketing, it was a welcome change to see the selectors here try and emulate theirs.

With Krish Srikanth and his team in this period, we can only hope now that they continue that policy and not go back to the dark ages. The selection meeting leak did not inspire too much confidence.

In context to the above with that of Pujara, when he performed brilliantly in the u19 test series against England, he was so-called rewarded with a six-week stay and training at Griffith University’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, on the annual Border-Gavaskar scholarship.

R.P. Singh was also chosen.

At Griffith, since he was a minor travelling, they could only allow him if a guardian accompanies him.

This so-called cash rich BCCI, the Saurashtra Cricket Association and National Cricket Academy refused to spend money on a plane ticket and accommodation for his guardian for a mere 6 weeks period.

Here he is now knocking on the doors of the Indian team.

The Wall 2.0 and I’m excited.