Wanted to build a big partnership with Kohli: Pujara

Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara, who scored a brilliant 119 on the opening day of the second Test match against England, said he and skipper Virat Kohli wanted to build a long partnership to seize the initiative.

The Kohli-Pujara pair put on 226 runs for the third wicket, that proved to be the key moment of the day and wrested the momentum from England, who started brilliantly reducing the hosts to 22/2 after five overs.

At stumps, India posted a commanding 317/4 with Kohli (151) and Ravichandran Ashwin (1) at the crease.

"We wanted to build a partnership. We wanted to bat through the session. The way we started we were rotating the strike. He was timing the ball well, and I was confident after the 100," Pujara said on Thursday.

"There was some misunderstanding in the first session. We spoke about that at lunch. If you see it was better second session onwards, he added.

Commenting on the pitch, Pujara said that the track here is slower than the previous one and might help off-spinners.

"This one is slower than Rajkot. I see more rough on both sides of the pitch. There might be a little more help for off-spinners as the game progresses," Pujara said.

"Hopefully there will be more cracks on it by the end of the second day. We would like to put up a big score, and hopefully we don't need to bat again," he added.

--IANS

gau/sam/bg