County Championships: Double-Centurion Cheteshwar Pujara Joins Former India Captain In Elite List Featuring India Batters

County Championships: Cheteshwar Pujara’s double-century for Sussex helped him join an elite batting list featuring former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin.

Cheteshwar Pujara’s fabulous knock of 201* in the ongoing County Championship Division 2 game between Sussex and Derbyshire helped him join an elite batting list featuring former India captainMohammad Azharuddin. On Sunday, Pujara played a gutsy innings to score a double-century on his debut for Sussex in County Cricket and this made him only the second Indian batter to score a double ton in the County Championship. Azharuddin had achieved this feat twice, once in 1991 when he scored 212 against Leicestershire and then in 1994 against Durham when he piled 205 runs. On both the instances,  Azharuddin was representing County side Derbyshire.

Pujara’s knock also made him level or surpass other batting feats. His 201* was his 14th first-class double-century, surpassing Kumar Sangakkara’s tally of 13 as the Asian batter with most double-tons.

Pujara’s knock also helped him become the batter with the highest individual score on the first-class debut for Sussex. He surpassed Joe Gatting, who had scored 152 against Cambridge UCCE in 2009.

Apart from Pujara’s feats, this was also only the third instance when three players had recorded individual double-tons in a County Championship match. Shan Masood and Tom Haines also scored double-centuries in this match.

Pujara was recently left out of India’s Test squad that faced Sri Lanka at home after a string of low scores. He therefore has plenty to prove in order to put his name back in reckoning for the national Test side.