Cheteshwar Pujara was in red hot form in the for Sussex in the Royal London Cup. He broke barriers being a Test specialist and worked on his skills and showed the world his top notch cricket after being snubbed from the Indian squad.
Pujara notched up 624 runs from nine matches, including three centuries and two fifties at an average of almost 90, striking at 112. The 34-year-old, over the years, has struggled to get into India's white-ball squads, having played just five ODIs in his career so far.
Meanwhile, Pujara revealed that the Chennai Super Kings' snub in 2021 actually triggered him to change his approach while batting in shorter formats of the game. In 2021, where he was part of the IPL title winning squad of CSK but did not get a game.
Talking to the Cricket Podcast, the veteran Indian player said, “This is a different side of my game for sure. 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 I the shorter formats, you still want to play your shots in your game.”
“I worked on it before the Royal London One-Day Cup. I went with Grant (Flower) 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,” he further added.
In the Royal London One-Day Cup, Pujara hit three hundreds and a fifty registering scores of 107, 174, 49*, 66 and 132. He also scored 1094 runs in the County Championship Division Two for the same club.
