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Cheteshwar Pujara opened up on India's declining fortunes in Test cricket and advised the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) on how to get things back on track in an era where T20 cricket is increasingly becoming more important and players are making the shortest format of the game their priority due to the massive financial reward.

In recent years, India has dominated white-ball cricket, as they won each of the last three ICC tournaments and played the final of the last four. However, the team has hit an all-time low in Test cricket after being whitewashed twice in two years after a 3-0 defeat to New Zealand in 2024 and South Africa in 2025. Pujara stated that the BCCI needs to identify 25-30 players who are part of their pool for Test cricket. The star batter claimed there can be a few multi-format players. He called for players that do not have IPL contracts to train at the NCA during the season. "You know you will have to pick the teams for white ball and then you pick a team for the red ball, so you need to identify 25-30 players in Indian domestic cricket that these are our red-ball players. You will have 5-6 players who are multi-format players, but you need to identify 25-30 players who will be best suited to play Test format for the Indian team, try and work on them. "I'm sure BCCI has already taken that initiative and they are working on the players who will be successful in just red-ball cricket. Try and give them training while the IPL is on because some of the players may not be part of the IPL (teams), so they should be training at the NCA (Centre of Excellence). You need to pick them from their domestic performances and work on them for at least couple of years and then you will eventually get them to play in the Test format," said JioStar CTV Hindi feed expert Cheteshwar Pujara in an interaction with the media on Wednesday (May 4) in Mumbai. Can A Player Play Only White-Ball Cricket? With concerns growing that players will choose to become white-ball specialists and play only Test cricket, Pujara claimed there will be nothing wrong with it. However, the former Indian cricketer claimed he will advise players to play all three formats and gave the example of top bowlers to stress his point. "I do agree that some of the white-ball players, especially the batters, are coming in a way where they haven't played enough red-ball cricket, but they don't need to. If you are just looking for a player who wants to specialise in T20 format, or who wants to just play the white-ball cricket, do they really need to learn Test cricket? "If they don't want to play all three formats, definitely not. The way cricket is moving forward, we will see players who are picking white-ball cricket and players who will pick red-ball cricket -- that is how I see things going forward. But at the same time, if you are dedicated enough, I always would encourage a young player to play all three formats of the game, and especially red-ball cricket," said Pujara. "If you look at the bowlers who have been successful in the IPL, for example, someone like Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Kagiso Rabada... (they) all have been great Test cricketers. If you look at their line and length, they have been very successful in Test cricket and that's why they are getting success even in T20 format. I wouldn't say or advise any youngster to shy away from red-ball cricket. But if a player like Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who hasn't played a lot of red-ball cricket and he is coming into the IPL and smashing sixes to all the bowlers, there is nothing wrong in that," he concluded.