Ranji Trophy: Cheteshwar Pujara's Test career in trouble as Saurashtra batter fails to open his account against Mumbai

Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, who struggled with the bat for the last two years for the Indian Test team, entered the Ranji Trophy tournament in order to get back to their old form. Rahane while playing for Mumbai played a solid knock and scored a century (129 runs off 290 runs) against Saurashtra in the first innings but things were not pretty sweet for Pujara as he could not score a single run and had to return to the dressing room after facing four balls.

Debutant bowler does the trick

Mumbai’s medium pace bowler Mohit Avasthi bowled out Pujara in the match. It is important to mention that Avasthi made his debut in the first-class cricket.

In a situation like this, now Pujara’s international Test career seems to be in danger. After a flop show in the South Africa tour, the team management had said that they will give one more chance to these two.

In the match played between Mumbai and Saurashtra in Ahmedabad, Mumbai batted first and Rahane scored a brilliant century. Apart from Rahane, another batter Sarfaraz Khan played a stupendous knock of 275 runs off 401 balls. His innings was comprised of 30 boundaries and 7 sixes. 

Later, Tanush Kotian scored an unbeaten knock of 50 runs off 81 balls. Mumbai eventually declared the first innings at 544 for 7 with the help of Rahane's century and Sarfaraz Khan's double century.

Batting order collapse

In response, the first innings of Saurashtra started on a pretty poor note. Saurashtra lost their top 5 wickets for just 75 runs. 

But when Pujara's batting came, all eyes were on him. But Pujara's form remained the same and after playing just four balls, he had to depart for the dressing room. 

It is worth mentioning that, Cheteshwar Pujara's form has been pretty dismal in recent times. During the recently concluded Test series against South Africa, Pujara scored only 124 runs in 6 innings. Pujara scored his last Test century for Indian team back in the year 2019.

It is tough to say what will happen in future but after Pujara’s poor show in the first innings the situation will inevitably be pretty arduous for the 34-year-old Gujarat-born batsman.