Snubbed for West Indies Tests, Cheteshwar Pujara smashes ton for West Zone in Duleep Trophy semi-final

Cheteshwar Pujara starred with the bat for West Zone against Central Zone on Day 3 of the ongoing Duleep Trophy semi-final at the KSCA Cricket Ground, Alur on Friday, July 7.

The right-hander was unbeaten on 132 runs off 266 deliveries, including one six and 14 boundaries when the play got interrupted due to rain. The 35-year-old also shared a 95-run partnership with Suryakumar Yadav to rescue his team from 40/2 to 135/3.

The century came days after the senior batter was dropped from India’s upcoming two Tests in West Indies. His exclusion came after he failed to deliver in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia, scoring 14 and 27, respectively.

Pujara’s ton has put West Zone in a commanding position as they stretched their lead to 383 runs.

At the time of writing, West Zone were 291/8 after 90 overs, with Pujara and Arzan Nagwaswalla at the crease. Saurabh Kumar scalped four wickets for Central Zone, while Saransh Jain bagged three.

Batting first, West Zone were bundled out for 220 as Shivam Mavi finished with figures of 6/43. Atit Sheth top scored 74.

In response, Central Zone were bowled out for 128. Nagwaswalla took a five-wicket haul, while Seth picked up three wickets. Chintan Gaja also scalped two. Meanwhile, Rinku Singh and Dhruv Jurel scored 48 and 46, respectively.

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“All it’s got to do with his strike rate” – Brad Hogg explains why Cheteshwar Pujara is dropped from Team India

Former Australian cricketer Brad Hogg believes that the slow strike rate was the prime reason Cheteshwar Pujara was dropped from Team India for West Indies Tests. Speaking recently on his YouTube channel, he said:

“All it’s got to do with his strike rate. If you look at Pujara’s strike rate early on his career, it was around the mid-40s, the last two years have been around 37."

Hogg continued:

"That’s not good enough when you want to entertain the fans and England have shown that there’s been a bit of a revamp with the Bazball and people are loving the way that they’re going about it."

Cheteshwar Pujara has amassed 7195 runs in 103 Tests at a strike rate of 44.37. Since 2020, he scored 1455 runs in 28 Tests at a strike rate of 37.97.