County Cricket: Cheteshwar Pujara disappoints yet again in England

Cheteshwar Pujara

Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara’s batting woes continue in England as he got dismissed for 16 in his third innings for his county club Derbyshire, against Surrey in a LV= County Championship Division 2 match at Kennington Oval.

In his three innings so far his new team, he has scored 7, 0 and 16, respectively. While Derbyshire lost the first of the two matches by 106 runs, against Glamorgan, they helped themselves to a slender 29-run lead in the second and now trail by 31 runs with 8 more Surrey wickets to pick before they bat, again.

Put into bat first, Surrey were dismissed for 181. The Falcons followed it up with 210 in their first innings. In to Day 2 of the 4-day match, Surrey are on 60/2 in 15.2 overs.

Following a disastrous Test series in England with Team India, where he could score only 222 runs in 5 Tests at an average of 22.20, the 26-year-old managed to land a contract with Derbyshire in hope to improve on his perfrormances.

Although it would be too early to draw any conclusions, with him having only played 3 matches for Derbyshire, for someone who is billed as the future of Indian cricket and labelled as a Test specialist, scores of 38, 55, 28, 43, 24, 2, 0, 17, 4, 11, 7, 0 and 16 in his 13 innings, all at the Old Blighty both with India and the Falcons, doesn’t seem too promising and raises serious concerns about his ability to play in challenging conditions.