India’s Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara is currently plying his trade in the English summer One Day Cup game where he smashed his second List A ton in three games to help Sussex to a four-wicket victory over Somerset. Pujara ended up scoring an unbeaten 117 off 113 balls in a 319-run chase, taking Sussex home with 11 balls to spare on Friday. The Saurashtra-based player’s century has not changed Sussex’s position in the group table as they are still at the bottom of group B.
Pujara who recently took part in the World Test Championship final before being snubbed for the tour of West Indies, has been in solid form in the last two County seasons for Sussex where he has collected centuries in both first-class and List A games. After finishing his Duleep Trophy project for the West Zone, Pujara joined Sussex for the remainder of the season.
Cheteshwar has always been considered as a red-ball specialist but then he proved that he is a versatile batter since he has an amazing List A average of 58.48 in 121 games and Friday’s ton was his 16th in the 50-over format.
Andrew Umeed (119) and Curtis Campher (101) built a stand of 163 runs and helped Somerset score 318/6 in 50 overs. In reply, Pujara kept scoring runs and added 88 runs with Tom Alsop (60) and took the team past the target. So far, Pujara has scored 23 vs Durham, 106 not out vs Northamptonshire, and 56 vs Derbyshire in a one-day competition.
Earlier, after being ignored for the West Indies series, Pujara made a brilliant hundred for West Zone in the ongoing Duleep Trophy against Central Zone Test at the KSCA Cricket Ground in Alur. The veteran batter played 278 deliveries to score 133 runs with the help of 14 boundaries and a six. He also became the fifth Indian batter to collect 60 first-class centuries and he is now tied with legend Vijay Hazare. Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar jointly top the list with 81 tons.