Cheteshwar Pujara slams 256 not out; Twitterati hail his effort

Cheteshwar Pujara slams 256 not out; Twitterati hail his effort

Cheteshwar Pujara is easily India’s ‘marathon man’. When he gets into his zone, he loves to play big. His three triple-tons are a testament to this fact. As a matter of fact, he is the only player to score three triple centuries within a span of one month, although only the last of these (306 not out vs West Indies ‘A’) was in a First-Class match. Overall, he has three scores in excess of 300 in First-Class cricket — 302 not out against Orrisa in 2008-09, 352 vs Karnataka in 2012-13 (both in Ranji Trophy) and 306 vs West Indies ‘A’ in 2012-13.

On Sunday, playing for India Blue in the Duleep Trophy final against the India Red side, he was well on course to score his fourth triple ton, which would have been a record in First-Class cricket. However, with score reading a mammoth 6 for 693, India Blue skipper Gautam Gambhir decided it was enough to crush the opposition and announced the declaration of innings. Pujara, at this point, was unbeaten on 256. He had batted for 541 minutes; just over nine hours, which is a remarkable feat. Another significant feature of his knock was that it came in 363 balls; at a decent strike rate of just over 70, a facet of the game Pujara is often criticised at.

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With this knock, Pujara seems to have put the demons behind him. Confidence-wise, he was not at his best coming into this series. He was criticised for his slow approach while batting during the recent tour to West Indies. In fact for the same reason, he was being dropped and replaced by Rohit Sharma. For someone like Pujara, who plays only in the longest format for Team India, it was a massive setback. Also this was not the only occasion when he was dropped from the playing XI. In past few tours, he was made to sit out to accommodate either Rohit or KL Rahul. And with the latter coming good in all formats, the competition for the slots has only intensified.