India veteran batsman Cheteshwar Pujara has been named in the 21-man squad of Saurashtra for the Ranji Trophy. Pujara has been struggling for some runs for quite some time now.
Saurashtra has been placed in Elite Group D along with Mumbai, Odisha, and Goa and they will play all their league matches in Ahmedabad. The team will be led by the experienced pacer Jaydev Unadkat.
Notable that Saurashtra are defending champions as they beat Bengal in Ranji Trophy 2019-20 season. The tournament wasn’t held last season due to Covid-19.
Cheteshwar Pujara hasn’t scored a Test hundred since January 2019
The team will get a good boost with the presence of Cheteshwar Pujara who scored tons of runs in domestic cricket. It will be interesting to see if Pujara gets picked for the 2-match test series against Sri Lanka starting on March 3.
Pujara hasn’t scored a Test hundred since January 2019. Since January 2020, he scored 810 runs in 30 innings with an average of 27.93 which included 7 fifties. So there will be huge pressure on him to perform in Ranji Trophy to retain his test spot.
Pujara also scored just one fifty in the South Africa tour which India lost by 1-2 despite winning the very first test match. He is just a 5-test match to join the elite list of players to play 100 Test matches.
The Ranji Trophy was originally scheduled to begin on January 13 but got postponed due to the Covid outbreak. Now it will be played in two halves. The group stage will be played before the IPL while the knockouts will be played from May 30 to June 26.
Currently, the team is training at Saurashtra Cricket Stadium and now will travel to Ahmedabad.
Saurashtra Squad: Jaydev Unadkat (Captain), Cheteshwar Pujara, Sheldon Jackson, Arpit Vasavada, Chirag Jani, Kamlesh Makwana, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Chetan Sakariya, Prerak Mankad, Vishvarajsinh Jadeja, Harvik Desai, Kevin Jivrajani, Kushang Patel, Jay Chauhan, Samarth Vyas, Parthkumar Bhut, Yuvrajsinh Chudasama, Devang Karamta, Snell Patel, Kishan Parmar, and Aditya Jadeja.