Cheteshwar Pujara on Friday completed his 9th hundred on the third day of the first Test match against England. This hundred was special as it was his first in his home ground in Rajkot. Cheteshwar Pujara’s family has also come to watch him play. His wife Pooja Pujara and father Arvind Pujara watched him score the hundred. While Pooja was jumping with joy, Arvind rose to his feet and solemnly clapped for his hero son. What a proud moment for a father.
Before the start of the match, Arvind Pujara and Cheteshwar had given an interview to BCCI TV. Arvind remembered how Cheteshwar Pujara held the bat and played for the first time. He said that he had banned Cheteshwar from batting on tennis and rubber ball. Arvind reasoned that he thought Cheteshwar ran the risk of playing cross-batted shots. Being a former cricketer himself, Arvind knew these intricacies of the game.
Arvind added that he had apprehensions that Cheteshwar was not as good a batsman as he thought he was. So he showed him to former Indian cricketer Karsan Ghavri, who also expressed his confidence on Cheteshwar. And the rest is history.
Pujara got out for 124 runs. His century is crucial for India’s prospects in the ongoing Test match against England as India were chasing a huge total. England had posted a mammoth 537 runs in their first innings. Moeen Ali, Joe Root and Ben Stokes scored a century each. The credit also goes to Indian fielders as they dropped 5 catches in the first innings.
