- Mar 4, 2024
- Jan 24, 2024
Cheteshwar Pujara is in the form of his life at the ongoing Royal London One-Day Cup. Right after scoring a 79-ball 107 for Sussex against Warwickshire, the right-handed batter followed it with yet another blistering century, this time a 174-run knock-off just 131 balls. Pujara’s innings came against Surrey on Sunday. Sussex was tottering at 9 for 2 in 3.2 overs when Pujara came out to bat. Pujara first made a 205-run stand with Tom Clark for the third wicket and later motored on from there.
While Clark got out after scoring 104, Pujara continued to hold one end tight. He later raced to his century in 103 balls. Soon after his century, the India southpaw switched gears and started hitting the ball at a better strike rate. What followed was absolute carnage from Pujara as he scored 74 runs off the next 28 balls. His innings came to an end in the 48th over but only after he hit 20 fours and 5 sixes overall.
Pujara’s whirlwind knock helped Sussex post a huge total of 378/6 in the stipulated 50 overs. Meanwhile, for Surrey, Conor McKerr picked two wickets while Tom Lawes, Matt Dunn, Amar Virdi, and Yousef Majid claimed a wicket each.
In the second innings, Aristides Karvelas 4 for 35 and Delray Rawlins 3 for 25 helped Sussex bundle out Surrey for 162 and win the game by a big margin of 216 runs. Ryan Patel 65 off 56 and Tom Lawes 57 not out showed some resistance but failed to win the game for Surrey.
The Test Star for India has shown great form in the One Day Competition in England. He is showing that he can be versatile with the Bat and that he has got the power game as well. Pujara has been labeled as more of a test player. He is proving everybody wrong by playing such amazing innings with such class and finesse which is making everybody sit up and take notice.
Notably, Cheteshwar Pujara had got a contract with the Chennai side in the Indian T20 League after a long gap in 2020 and everyone showered the star batter with praise for getting a contract. He was also in the running to bat for India at No 4 in ODI’s but that did not materialize.