Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara who is considered as the Test specialist has stunned the crowd in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy by scoring his maiden century in the T20 format. He has also become the first player to score a century in T20 for Saurashtra.
Cheteshwar Pujara is well known for his patience and he is considered as a reliable player for India in the Test format. Although he has never played a single T20 game for India as his style of playing is slightly different than that of a T20 player.
But in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2019, he scored an unbeaten century against Railways which came off just 61 deliveries with the help of 14 boundaries and a six.
Cheteshwar Pujara constructed an 85 run partnership for the first wicket with opener Harvik Desai (34) and for the second wicket Robin Uthappa (46) joined hands with Pujara and scored an 82-run partnership. With the help of Pujara’s unbeaten century, Saurashtra comfortably placed a target of 189 runs for the Railways.
Pujara completed his first 50-runs in just 29 deliveries while he played 32 deliveries to score further 50-runs. 31-year-old Pujara has played 68 Test matches in which he has scored 18 centuries and 20 half-centuries. He has only played 5 ODIs in which he has scored a total of 51 runs.
Railways failed to chase the target and lost some wickets in the middle of the game which led Saurashtra to pull off a 5-wicket victory in the round 1 of Group C fixture of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2019.
But has not been able to debut for India in T20s till now. Although he has played 58 T20 matches in his career in which he has scored 1096 run in 51 innings with the help of six-fifties. Pujara who has shown consistency with the bat against Australia in Tests might be finding his way in the Indian squad for the T20 format.
