Easily one of the most prolific run scorers in the First Class format, India’s Cheteshwar Pujara continues his run scoring in the England County Championship, where he’s playing for Sussex. He’s got a number of big scores this season and now, he’s gone on to get another big century in the season, this time on his debut appearance as captain for Sussex.
Prior to this, Pujara scored four centuries and out of them, two were double centuries in just six games for Sussex. In fact, his first four games all saw centuries, where two were converted to double centuries. Then, he had a couple of quiet games where he batted only one innings each, before coming back and scoring another daddy century, this time getting 231 runs!
Pujara scores 231 for Sussex
His previous double centuries this season in the County Division 2 were 201* and 203, and this time he got his highest score of the season, bringing up his fifth century in just 7 games. Currently, he’s the only one in the tournament to have 5 centuries this season, now totalling 997 runs in his 7th game here, with a potential 2nd innings still awaited.
However, it’s unlikely he’ll bat again in this game as he helped Sussex get to 523 in their 1st innings, with Tom Alsop also getting a century. In the reply, Middlesex are 168/4 at the time of writing this and a massive 1st innings lead is expected for Sussex. Interestingly, it’s the first game that Pujara is Sussex captain (due to injury to Tom Haines) and he’s really leading by example here.
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In Division 2 this season, only two batsmen have scored more run than Pujara and they are Shan Masood (1,074 in 8 games) and Ben Duckett (1,005 in his 9th game). Duckett also scored a century in his ongoing game against Derbshire. Coming back to Pujara, he’s been getting these runs at a time when everyone thought his Test career was coming to an end.
The last two Sussex players to make a double century at Lord's…
13 May 1897 – 260 by KS Ranjitsinhji against MCC (@#3)
20 July 2022 – 231 by Cheteshwar Pujara against Middlesex (@#4)
Note: MCC followed on but yet won the match by 46 runs!
— Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) July 21, 2022
He had a series of low scores at the highest level and even now when India played England in the 5th Test of a pending series, he only managed scores of 13 and 66. However, the confidence that these scores would’ve brought him means that the 34-year old is likely to get some big centuries for India in coming months too.
Today belongs to @cheteshwar1. 👏
2⃣3⃣1⃣ pic.twitter.com/Diar6ng2Dw
— Sussex Cricket (@SussexCCC) July 20, 2022
Sussex has clearly been enjoying having Pujara in their midst this season, and their social media is usually always full of posts with this run-machine from Saurashtra. Having scored his 16th FC double century, Pujara is now fifth on the list of highest career all-time double centuries, tied with Jack Hobbs, CB Fry, Graeme Hick with 16 each. Don Bradman tops this list with 37 double tons!
We’re expecting him to keep putting up massive scores and for all updates on Pujara as well as the ongoing English County Championship and other cricket news and tournaments, stay tuned to ReadScoops.com…
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