Pujara reads the script to thrill his home crowd

Rajkot was ready. A man who had grown up among them - in some cases with them - was in the middle. On 99.

"Whooooooaaaaaaa," they went as the bowler ran in. "Oooooohhhhhhh," they sighed when it was defended. They had to wait for a pesky tea interval. Then came a short and wide one outside off.

Cheteshwar Pujara dabbed it to the right of point and those wobbly knees, both of which have undergone surgery, got cranking. They beat a direct hit and their owner kept running. Pujara had got his captain up on his feet. And so too his coach. He had given the entire crowd the very thing they would have been talking about since they realised Test cricket was finally coming home.

Somewhere in those stands was a man who had sat through the entire day's play with his hands folded across his chest. Maybe he thought crossing his fingers just wasn't strong enough. He finally got up, abandoned the pose and probably clapped the hardest. On the eve of the Test, Arvind Pujara said he had never seen his son bat in international cricket live. Four days later, he was surrounded by fans, each taking turns to shake the hand of the man who had gone to great pains to teach a young Pujara the game they all loved.

"Why should he stop there?" Arvind had said on Tuesday, when asked how he would like for Cheteshwar to make a century in his home town. "To be very honest, I was hoping to get a double-hundred," Cheteshwar said today after making 124. Like father, like son.

"Obviously before I played this game there were many nervous moments but I told myself that I will just focus on the things I have to do on the field," Pujara said. "Because there were expectations - many family members and close friends were watching this game, even the crowd was expecting me to score big runs. But I told myself that I don't need to think about it, looking at the kind of position India was in, we wanted a good total, I just wanted to focus on the process and things turned out well for me."

There was even a hint of destiny about it all. Pujara was given out lbw on 86 and normally he would have been forced to walk off to the dressing room and ponder over what could have been. This time, though, he had the right to an appeal. This time India had DRS at home.

"Initially, when the ball hit me I thought it was hitting high," Pujara said. "It did not hit me on the front pad, it hit me on the rear pad. I confirmed with Vijay and he felt it was high. Then I was confident in taking DRS."

As the ball-tracker showed it would have bounced over the stumps, Pujara's wife, Pooja, broke into a big grin, leapt up and down, absolutely elated.

After years of opposition - most of which was centred around an issue with lbw calls - the fates had aligned to such an extent that DRS would overturn an lbw decision against an Indian batsman in its first match on home soil, and that same batsman would go on to make a century. It seems all good stories need a bit of irony.

There was a villain as well. One who dared to hit Rajkot's Pujara right in front of them. Chris Woakes rapped the batsman on his helmet three times in three overs in the morning.

"I got a couple of good bouncers. I thought I did not judge it well. But overall, in international level, I expect bowlers to bowl bouncers," said Pujara. "Usually, I am very good at short balls. So, I think there were a couple of occasions where I did not judge properly. I told myself that even if I get hit on the helmet or body, I will take it. I know the conditions very well, a couple of short balls don't disturb me and my gameplan."

And they didn't. Pujara moved smoothly past that phase and, though he couldn't get the double-hundred he wanted, he has put India in a much better position to draw the game. The cheers as he walked off, raising his bat one more time were deafening. For once, Indian fans wanted their No. 3 to stay just a bit more than they wanted to see the No. 4 coming out.