Cheteshwar Pujara made a strong comeback to competitive cricket during the start of the 2022/23 season in England and piled up plenty of runs to make his India comeback for the one-off Test match against England. Dropped from the Test team earlier this year, Pujara also went unsold in the IPL 2022 mega auction and was confirmed to miss Indian cricket for nearly 7 months.
Once again, Pujara signed a deal with a county club and this time, he played for Sussex. For the first time since 2018, he also decided to play the Royal London One-Day Cup. The right-handed batsman scored 720 runs in 8 innings at an average of 120.00 before making his India comeback. Pujara finished his red-ball season with 1094 runs.
In the Royal London One-Day Cup, he smashed 624 runs in 9 matches. Pujara averaged 88.83 in the tournament and batted with a strike-rate of 111.62. Speaking to Cricket Podcast, Pujara revealed that CSK snub saw him make a turnaround and make him feel that he wants to play the shorter format as well. He was part of CSK in IPL 2021 but remained on bench.
“This is a different side of my game for sure. There is no doubt about it. Pitches were good, slightly flat but even those surfaces, you need to have that intent of scoring at a higher strike-rate. This is something which I have always worked on. I was part of CSK a year before last and when I didn’t play any games and saw the guys prepare, I told myself that if I want to play the shorter format. I always used to put a big prize on my wicket but in the shorter formats, you still want to play your shots in your game,” Pujara said on The Cricket Podcast.
“I worked on it before the Royal London One-Day Cup. I went with Grant and spoke to him that there are some shots which I want to work. When we were training, he told me that I am executing those really well and that gave me confidence. I thought that if I could keep working on some of the lofted shots which could help me and if I can execute those, I could be successful even in shorter formats.”
Pujara has now returned from his county stint and will be seen in action for Saurashtra in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy next month. With the first-choice players set to be rested for the ODI series against South Africa, it remains to be seen if Pujara’s dream run in white-ball cricket can see him add to his 5 ODI caps next month or not.
