'Pujara showed he can also score at a fast pace'

Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar says young Chiteshwar Pujara has got his basics right and can be tried out in limited-overs cricket too.

"Something that certainly can be given a try, because he has got the basics right. If you have the basics right then expanding your shot-making capabilities is not so much of a problem," Gavaskar said, when asked about the Saurashtra batsman scoring at a faster rate than Virender Sehwag during India's chase on the final day of the first Test against England in Motera, on Monday.

- Scorecard: India v England, 1st Test

"You have the license to play lot more shots in limited-overs' cricket than in Test cricket. It is just a matter of confidence. He has been in the IPL teams... he hasn't really got an opening.

"Even there he bats down the order, where he has got to come in and start hitting the ball in the air soon enough. That is not something that he is comfortable with," he told NDTV.

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"What he showed by hitting the ball down the ground and getting boundaries, he can also score at a fast pace," Gavaskar said about Pujara, who was adjudged player-of-the-match for his unbeaten innings of 206 and 41 in the series opener against England, which India won comfortably by nine wickets.

Asked whether the Indians were able to exploit the conditions better than the visitors, Gavaskar replied: "Indian pitches are generally very-very good to bat on the first couple of days, then they sort of slow-down and have a bit of spin.

"Sometimes the ball keeps low. So you win the toss and you bat first.

"You have the opportunity to put up a decent total on the board and India did more than decent. They scored more than 500 runs. Batting first becomes an important aspect on Indian pitches."

On Indian bowlers' performance in comparison to their English counterparts, Gavaskar felt the visitors bowled a bit short.

"England bowlers are perhaps not used to bowling with the SG ball and that is one of the reasons they were not able to get the contrast swing which Umesh Yadav and Zaheer Khan were able to get," he said.

"Zaheer and Umesh were bowling a much fuller length while the English bowlers were bowling just short of length than they are used to in England or on Australian surfaces.

"If you want to succeed as a bowler in India you got to bowl a much fuller length. You got to get the batsman committed on the front-foot, committed into playing attacking shots. That is where you can get wickets," Gavaskar insisted.

Gavaskar, meanwhile, dismissed the exchange of words between Pragyan Ojha and Stuart Broad as a "storm in the cup".

"That was an over reaction," the former India captain said.

On the prospect of Harbhajan Singh making a comeback into the Indian team, Gavaskar said: "He certainly seems to be very keen on making a comeback to the team and given that (Ravichandran) Ashwin was not as effective as he is used to, Harbhajan may be sniffing a small opportunity."

Asked whether India might go in with three spinners in the matches to come, Gavaskar said that is only possible if India goes in with just five batsmen, which is quite unlikely to happen.