Cheteshwar Pujara surpasses Virat Kohli and Babar Azam on the back of stunning form for Sussex in Royal London One Day Cup

Cheteshwar Pujara scored his third century in the Royal London One-Day Cup 2022 
 By Prachi Mahamia Updated: Sep 5, 2022, 15:52 IST
Cheteshwar Pujara

It looks like 2022 is the year for Cheteshwar Pujara. After making his way through the county earlier this year, the Indian batter is on a roll. Pujara is literally "leading" his team Sussex from the front. As a result of Pujara's spectacular run, he is now this season's second batter in the English tournament to score 500 runs. For the competition, he slammed his third century. Before being caught by Max Harris, the player quickly reached his hundred in just 75 balls and added 32 runs off the next 15 balls he faced.

While doing so, he moved past Virat Kohli and Babar Azam's record. In List A cricket now, the 34-year-old batter has the second highest batting average of 57.48 with a minimum of 100 matches. He has amassed 5059 runs. Babar is right behind with 7580 runs in 156 matches with an average of 56.56. Kohli, on the other hand, has an average of 56.50 having played as many as 296 games and scoring 13786 runs. 

Pujara's partnership with Cricket NFT platform Rario will help users acquire special moments of Pujara as player cards.

Century number 3 in last 5 games


Speaking of the Royal London One-Day Cup, Pujara has played 8 games. In terms of runs, he is only second to Middlesex player Stephen Eskinazi, who has 658 runs with 4 centuries in the same number of games. The Sussex captain is merely 44 runs behind in the list. His knocks in this season include: 9 (16), 63 (71), 14* (7), 107 (79), 174 (131), 49* (68), 66 (66), and 132 (90).
Pujara, who is now partnered with Cricket NFT Platform Rario, was given the responsibility to lead the team when Sussex's captain suffered an injury during the match against Leicestershire last month. Tom Haines was ruled out for approximately 5–6 weeks. In order to not overburden the vice-captain Steve Finn, the team's coach opted to make the Indian batter the captain. Sussex is doing well at the top of the points table in Group A with 5 wins in 7 games, and a total of 10 points at a net run rate of 1.734. 
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