When father-in-law’s heart procedure and husband’s fight for his Test career collided
In 2013, Puja Pabari, who had never followed or understood cricket, married Cheteshwar Pujara. On April 29, she released her memoir ‘The Diary of a Cricketer’s wife’. The following excerpts are on two inter-related incidents. When Cheteshwar was battling an injury and form in the 2018 Test series in Australia, his father had to undergo an emergency heart procedure. In Australia, Pujara would overhear an unpleasant phone call talking about why he needs to be dropped. Puja describes the ordeal of handling her father-in-law’s surgery while tracking her husband’s efforts to keep his career afloat. Even as I worried over Cheteshwar’s fitness, fate delivered a major blow back home—my father suffered from another episode of tachycardia! On the eve of the second test match, in the wee hours of the morning, my father-in-law called me on my mobile from his room on the first floor. ‘Puja, I’m feeling very uneasy, can you come down,’ he requested in a thready voice. His BP appeared normal, but his pulse rate had shot through the roof and was …
