Down but not out! Cheteshwar Pujara may have been dropped from the India cricket team, but that hasn’t stopped the batter from doing what he loves the most: piling on heaps of runs.
Pujara scored a record 17th first-class double century during the Saurashtra vs Jharkhand match in the Ranji Trophy and put his name in contention for the IND vs ENG Test series.
Apart from scoring a double ton, Pujara also overtook former Indian great VVS Laxman’s tally of 19730 runs and is now the 4th highest first-class run scorer in India’s cricket history.
His 17th double century also places him fourth on the list of most 200s in first-class cricket, behind legends like Sir Don Bradman, Wally Hammond, and Herbert Sutcliffe.
Does Cheteshwar Pujara merit a place in the IND vs ENG Test squad?
Despite his returns on the Indian and English domestic circuits, Pujara’s performance for the India cricket team since 2020 has been poor.
In the last four years, he has scored 1455 runs in 28 matches at a poor average of 29.69. Although he has scored 12 fifty or more in these matches, he has only converted one of those into a hundred.
This, combined with his increased age and a visible difficulty in handling spin on ragging pitches India has been making for the last couple of years, makes it safe to say that Pujara hasn’t done much to earn himself a place in the IND vs ENG Test series. The great batter may have already played his last Test for the India cricket team.
