Aakash Chopra, a former India opener, talked about Cheteshwar Pujara‘s record in England as Rohit Sharma’s team heads to the 2023 ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final. The second WTC final will start on Wednesday, June 7, at The Oval in London. Pat Cummins will be in charge of it between India and Australia.
India will be in the final of the WTC for the second year in a row. India and New Zealand played in the first WTC final, which was held in 2019–21. Kane Williamson led New Zealand to victory in the final.
Aakash Chopra said in his preview of the match that Pujara was great in the County Championship, which is why he was brought back to the Indian team. He also said that the 35-year-old bowler has played one fewer match than Virat Kohli but doesn’t have a great Test record in England.
“In county cricket, Pujara has gotten a lot of runs. Because of that, he was the only one to come back to the Indian team, but the truth is that he has probably only played one less match than Kohli, and his numbers are not good at all,” Chopra said in a video posted on his YouTube account.
The former KKR batter went on to say that Ajinkya Rahane’s Test average in England is about the same as Pujara’s. He also said that both of them have played a lot of games and scored hundreds, but that their test average is below 30, which isn’t great.
“Pujara has a batting average of less than 30. The number could be 26 or 29. Both of their scores are almost the same. One of them has 26 and the other has 29. They have played a lot of games and each scored a century, but their average score on England’s fields is less than 30, which is not good,” he said.
Kohli’s Test average in England has been below-par. Chopra also said that Kohli’s hitting average in England has also been below par. The 45-year-old said that he is the only Indian to have scored more than 1,000 runs in the present system, but that his average is only 33. In 16 Tests on English soil, the former captain of India has scored 1033 runs at an average of 33.32.
“If you want to know how Kohli has done, his batting average is only 33. He is the only Indian player on this team to have scored more than 1,000 runs. His average is 33, though, because the 2014 series was bad and the last one was just okay, the former bowler said.
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