Pujara and Vijay may well feel aggrieved at missing out on the MoM award.

For a bowler to win the ‘Man of the Match’ in a batsman’s game can be a heartening experience.
Ravindra Jadeja, making the most of Mohali conditions where he earned wickets because the batsman were paralysed by their mental apprehensions of the state of the pitch, took the honours when he returned a haul of eight for 76 (three for 55 and five for 21). He could certainly pat himself, but where did Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara go wrong?
Batting was a challenge if not an impossible task. Variable bounce was a constant threat and only good technique was the key.
Vijay aggregated 122 runs in two innings and Pujara 108. Their performance, contributing 57 percentage runs of India’s aggregate for the match, was the driving force as India overcame South Africa by 108 runs, a massive margin keeping in mind the bowler-friendly conditions laid by the curator, Daljit Singh.
Vijay stood firm in both innings but a poor shot in the first innings and a stunning catch in the second caused his dismissal.
While not masterly, it was a fine exhibition of discipline and commitment by one of India’s most compact batsmen in the past few years.
V.V.S. Laxman, a delightful player against spin, especially on dicey pitches, always maintained that tight defence ought to be supported by a wide range of strokes for a batsman to prosper on pitches such as Mohali. “Batsmen have to watch the ball closely. One can’t bring in T20 shots in a Test situation,” he had said recently.
For Pujara it has been a case of bizarre treatment of a batsman who was rated very highly by the likes of Rahul Dravid. “He is ideal for Test cricket,” was Dravid’s opinion when he monitored the initiation of Pujara into international cricket.
There was a case for Pujara to claim the honours also since his knocks of 31 and 77 bore the stamp of a batsman in form and firmly in control of the situation too.
On his comeback to the team, Pujara, asked to open the innings, had claimed the ‘Man of the Match’ award against Sri Lanka in the preceding Test at Colombo.
It would have been a travesty if the team management had preferred Rohit Sharma to Pujara in the prevailing circumstances at Mohali.
Pujara’s forte is his calm posture at the crease and he carried himself in exemplary fashion while blunting the South African attack.
Dilip Vengsarkar still rues the fact that he was denied the ‘Man of the Match’ for his 166 on a minefield against Sri Lanka at Cuttack in 1987. Vijay and Pujara may rightly feel equally aggrieved at missing out the privilege on a pitch prepared just to suit the Indian spinners. Sometimes cricket is not really just a batsman’s game.