For the first time, Cheteshwar Pujara scores century and fifty in same Test

Pujara is the eighth Indian to achieve the feat in a Test on Australian soil.

Cheteshwar Pujara backed his 123 with a fifty on Sunday. @Getty

For the first time a Test career in its 65th match, India batsman Cheteshwar Pujara has scored a century and a half-century in the same game.

On day one, Pujara scored his 16h Test hundred – an excellent 123 that took India to 250 in their first innings. On day three, he helped the score to 151/3 with a solid 40 not out which on Sunday he converted into his 20th Test fifty.

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Prior to this Test, Pujara had on three occasions managed two fifties in a Test: against Australia at the Feroz Shah Kotla in 2013, against New Zealand in Kanpur in 2016 and versus Bangladesh in Hyderabad in 2017.

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In his 64 prior Test matches, on six occasions Pujara did not bat a second time after scoring a hundred. Two of his 16 hundreds have come in the second innings. On those two occasions, he scored 25 and 153 versus South Africa at Johannesburg in 2016 and 41 and 101* versus New Zealand at Indore in 2016.

In raising his fifty on Sunday, Pujara also became the eighth Indian to manage a century and 50-plus score in a Test in Australia. Vijay Hazare, ML Jaisimha, Mohinder Amarnath, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Virat Kohli are those before him.

Kohli, famously, scored twin hundreds in Adelaide in 2014-15.