Cheteshwar Arvind Pujara is an Indian cricketer who is currently the vice captain of Indian cricket team in Test cricket and is the captain of Sussex County Cricket Club in County Championship. He plays for Saurashtra in Indian domestic cricket. Pujara is known for his disciplined batting style which made him an integral part of the Indian Test team for over a decade. His excellent batting was one of the main reasons of India winning their first-ever test series win in Australia.

Pujara made his first-class debut for Saurashtra in December 2005 and made his Test debut at Bangalore in October 2010. As of 9 May 2021, he is ranked as the world No.14 Test batsman, according to the ICC Player Rankings with a tally of 697 points. He also played 5 ODI matches for India.

He was a part of the India A team which toured England in the 2010 summers and was the highest scorer of the tour. In October 2011, the BCCI awarded him a D grade national contract. Known to have a sound technique and the temperament required to play long innings, he was one of the contenders for a spot in the Indian middle order after the retirement of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. and was a part of the IPL 2021 winning team Chennai Super Kings.

Early life

Cheteshwar Pujara was born in Rajkot, Gujarat on 25 January 1988 In a Hindu Lohana Family. His father Arvind and his uncle Bipin were Ranji Trophy players for Saurashtra. His father and his mother, Reema Pujara, recognized his talents early and Cheteshwar practised with his father. His mother died in 2005 when he was 17 due to cancer. Cheteshwar Pujara completed his BBA from J.J Kundalia College.

Youth career

Pujara made his Under-19 Test debut for India against England in 2005. Opening the innings, he scored 211 runs to help India win by an innings and 137 runs. He was also picked in the Indian squad for the 2006 Under-19 Cricket World Cup after scoring three fifties in four innings of the Afro-Asia Under-19 Cup. He was the leading run-scorer of the Under-19 World Cup where he scored 349 runs from 6 innings, including three fifties and a century, at an average of 117. He was the Man of the Tournament in the 2006 Under-19 Cricket World Cup.

He scored 97 runs against the West Indies in the quarterfinals before scoring 129 runs not out against England in the semifinals, helping India win by a huge margin of 234 runs. However, he was dismissed for a duck in the final, against Pakistan, which India eventually lost.

Domestic career

He scored 10 and 203 not out from just 221 balls against Madhya Pradesh at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium at Rajkot to ensure a 203-run victory which qualified Saurashtra for the 2012–13 Ranji Trophy quarter-finals. In his next match, the quarter-final at Saurashtra University in Rajkot against Karnataka, he scored 37 and 352 to ensure that Saurashtra progressed to the semifinal. Though he was called to the India ODI squad after this success, he was not selected in the first XI.

In 2013, at the age of only 25, Pujara became only the ninth batsman to score three career first-class triple-centuries. His scores were: 302* for Saurashtra against Orissa in 2008/09, 352 for Saurashtra against Karnataka in 2012/13, and 306* for India A against West Indies A in 2013/14. He also holds a record of scoring three triple centuries within a span of one month, although only the last of these was in a first-class match.

Pujara played for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the first three seasons of the IPL. In the 2011 players' auction, he was bought by the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). He started for RCB for the fourth season of the IPL before injuring his knee in a match against Kochi Tuskers Kerala. The injury kept him out of action for nearly a year before he returned to domestic cricket at the end of 2011

In April 2022, in the 2022 County Championship in England, Pujara and Tom Haines became the first batters to score double centuries in the same innings of a first-class match while following-on.

In July 2022, Pujara scored a century in his first game as Sussex captain against Middlesex in the ongoing 2022 County Championship in England. This was his fifth century in this county season

Records

Pujara passed 2,000 runs in a year. He scored 2,043 runs at 102.15 in first-class matches in 2013. Only Chris Rogers with 2,391 runs at 48.79 from 28 matches made more in 2013.
His 222-run partnership with Virat Kohli is India's joint-highest in South Africa and their highest in the second innings of a Test in South Africa.
Second fastest 1,000 test runs by Indian player.
Highest second innings score of 153 by any Indian batsmen in South Africa.
Most balls faced by an Indian in a Test innings: 525.
Pujara climbed to a career-best number 2 spot in the rankings for Test batsmen after his double century against Australia in March 2017.
He is the third batsman for India, and ninth overall, to bat on all five days of a Test.
He is the sixth Indian cricketer to score a century in a Tour outside Asia on the first day.
He is the eleventh Indian cricketer to reach 6000 Test Runs.

Personal life

Pujara is the son of Arvind Pujara and the nephew of Bipin Pujara, both of whom played for Saurashtra in the Ranji Trophy.

When he was 17, his mother died due to cancer. He married Puja Pabari in Rajkot on 13 February 2013. On 23 February 2018, the couple became parents of a baby girl named Aditi.

International Centuries

Pujara has made 19 centuries in international cricket – all in Test cricket – as of April 2022. He scored his first test century against New Zealand at Hyderabad in the first match of New Zealand's tour of India in 2012, scoring 159.

No.	Score	Against	Pos.	Inn.	Test	Venue	H/A/N	Date	Result	Ref
1	159	New Zealand	3	1	1/2	Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad	Home	23 August 2012	Won
2	206 not out	England	3	1	1/4	Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad	Home	15 November 2012	Won
3	135	England	3	1	2/4	Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	Home	23 November 2012	Lost
4	204	Australia	3	2	2/4	Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad	Home	2 March 2013	Won
5	113	West Indies	3	2	1/2	Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	Home	14 November 2013	Won
6	153	South Africa	3	3	1/2	Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg	Away	18 December 2013	Draw
7	145 not out	Sri Lanka	2	1	3/3	Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo	Away	28 August 2015	Won
8	101 not out	New Zealand	3	3	3/3	Holkar Stadium, Indore	Home	8 October 2016	Won
9	124	England	3	2	1/5	Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot	Home	9 November 2016	Draw
10	119	England	3	1	2/5	VDCA Cricket Stadium, Vishakhapatnam	Home	17 November 2016	Won
11	202	Australia	3	2	3/4	JSCA International Stadium Complex, Ranchi	Home	16 March 2017	Draw
12	153	Sri Lanka	3	1	1/3	Galle International Stadium, Galle	Away	26 July 2017	Won
13	133	Sri Lanka	3	1	2/3	Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo	Away	3 August 2017	Won
14	143	Sri Lanka	3	2	2/3	Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur	Home	24 November 2017	Won
15	132 not out	England	3	2	4/5	Rose Bowl, Southampton	Away	30 August 2018	Lost
16	123	Australia	3	1	1/4	Adelaide Oval, Adelaide	Away	6 December 2018	Won
17	106	Australia	3	1	3/4	Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne	Away	26 December 2018	Won
18	193	Australia	3	1	4/4	Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney	Away	3 January 2019	Draw
19	102 not out	Bangladesh	3	1	1/2	Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chittagong	Away	16 December 2022	Won