Throughout the past few weeks, the ongoing County Championship in Division Two has seen a lot of excellent performances. While some batters maintained their composure to build solid innings, others displayed their aggressive side to take on the opposition. Cheteshwar Pujara, the captain of India’s Test team, has, nevertheless, been in superb form with the bat ever since he joined Sussex County to get ready for the upcoming World Test Championship (WTC) Final.
The most amazing thing about Cheteshwar Pujara is how he has performed ever since he took over as captain of Sussex after Tom Haines, the team’s normal captain, was diagnosed with a hand injury and declared out for at least six weeks. He has maintained his fluency and has not even slightly let his batting affect him. Pujara has already scored a century to get his time with Sussex off to a brilliant start this season.
In the same vein, Cheteshwar Pujara continued his batting masterclass against Gloucestershire on day two of a rain-shortened encounter at Bristol. The Indian hitter, who is currently batting first and is unbeaten at 99, will resume on day three hoping to score another spectacular century. Notably, if Pujara accomplishes the milestone, this will be his 58th ton in his First Class career. At the end of the second day’s play, Sussex’s score had increased thanks to his innings from 47/1 to 302/4.
Pujara produced some magnificent straight drives during his fantastic innings, which completely delighted the local fans. Against van Burren, the Indian hitter hit a beautiful drive through the extra cover area to get his half-century. Only when Pujara ended up cutting off Zafar Gohar’s leg stump did it almost appear like his amazing innings were over. He then used careful cuts to hit two boundaries off him in the very next over. In his 190-ball total, Pujara finished the day with one six and 13 fours.
Currently, Pujara is in charge of the County Championship’s Division Two run chart.
Regarding Cheteshwar Pujara’s overall performance in the current County Championship, he has amassed 280 runs from three matches to far with an astounding average of 70.00, including one century and one fifty each. He now leads Sussex in runs scored in the competition.
While James Cole reached his career-best best of 74, Tom Alsop assisted Pujara with 67 runs in some other noteworthy performances between Sussex and Gloucestershire. Zafar Gohar, a member of the hosts’ bowling squad, ended up being the most effective bowler with 2/67.
It would be intriguing to see how Cheteshwar Pujara performs on day three and whether he manages to turn this knock into a marathon knock.
India
