Jump to content

Pujara to play County cricket for Yorkshire


Recommended Posts

he Yorkshire County Cricket Club is delighted to announce the signing of Indian Test star Cheteshwar Pujara.

The 29-year-old, who will share overseas duties with New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, is set to arrive in the UK just in time for the Leeds Bradford MCCU fixture on April 7.

Despite a deal for the Rajkot-born right-hander being struck several weeks ago, the Club’s announcement has been purposely delayed until after the Indian Premier League auction. During that time, The Board of Control for Cricket in India have scheduled a one-off Test against Afghanistan in Bengaluru, from June 14-18, with Pujara set to depart for his home country after the Royal London 50-Over clash at Lancashire, but more crucially returning in time for the away trip to Hampshire, in the Specsavers County Championship, on June 20.

There is also potential for Pujara to stay on after the India’s summer Test tour to play the final home fixture against Hampshire (Sep 18) followed by the trip to New Road to face Worcestershire (Sep 24).

The addition of a second overseas batsman means Yorkshire will have three of the top six Test batsmen on their staff in 2018, with Root (three), Williamson (four) and Pujara (six).

“I’m really excited to be able to have the opportunity to represent Yorkshire once again,” he told yorkshireccc.com. “It’s always nice to be able to come over here and play some County Cricket and I’m just as excited as I was last time to represent the Club. I love the passion the people of Yorkshire have for the game and they made me feel very welcome.

“I know quite a few of the players, so I’ll just try to play my natural game and score plenty of runs for the Club.

“It’s an honour for me to play for the same county as Yuvraj Singh and Sachin Tendulkar and each time I’ve played county cricket it has improved me as a player. That’s the plan again in 2018. I just want to score as many runs as possible for Yorkshire and soak up as much as I can from the whole experience.”

Pujara, who delivered a record-breaking 12th double century of his 12-year career towards the end of 2017, averages 56.68 in First-Class cricket. His County Championship record stands at 816 runs with three fifties and as many hundreds. One of each came in Yorkshire colours in the early stages of the Club’s second successive Championship winning year.

“It goes without saying that Cheteshwar is a highly-driven individual and very skilled batsman,” said Director of Cricket Martyn Moxon. “We’re delighted to have him on board.

“He proved to be a very likable character the last time he was with us and the plan is for him to relieve some of the pressure on the top order that we struggled with at times in 2017.

“Just as he did in 2015, Pujara will relish the challenge of performing in English conditions. He’s very difficult to dislodge and will hopefully dominate the crease for us during his stay.”

 

https://yorkshireccc.com/news/view/6203/pujara-to-return-to-white-rose-in-2018

 

Edited by Ankit_sharma03
Link to comment

Last year he scored 1 ton and 1 fifty but didn't exactly rock the season as expected from an international test batsman . He averaged around 27. However his intentions are good. Clearly he wants to improve by trying to get used to unfamiliar conditions. Certainly it will be beneficial to him. Good move again, I would say. 

 

Last year he played for Nottinghamshire, who were in Division 2 in 2017 Specsavers CC. In 2018 they will still be part of Division 2. Whereas Yorkshire are part of Division 1. So Chet will face better bowling attack. In nets he will get to face Coad and Plunkett. From opposition he will get to face the likes of  Finn, Porter, Craig Overton, Tim Murtagh, Rikki Clarke and many more. Kyle Abott from Hampshire will also be a good opponent pacer to face.Better bowlers and opponents in Division 1.

Edited by Straight Drive
Link to comment
20 hours ago, SUMO said:

With root n kane in side will he get to bat at no.3 or face tha new ball?

Pujara is certainly going to bat at 3. Gary ballance bats for 4 for them. Handsomb their No. 3 players is not signed by Yorksire. Shaun Marsh is also not part in top order. So Pujara will get accommodated at 3 as he also is used to it.

 

Well i have following opinions on the signings of Pujara:

(1) Shaun Marsh has moved from Yorkshire to Glamorgan. Handscomb who batted at No 3 for Yorkshire has left Yorkshire in 2017 itself. So those two top order spots were vacant. Hence i think Chet is replacement of Shaun Marsh as it seems things have not worked getting Shaun Marsh back for 2018 season.  

Pujara was one of the most probable candidate and he was in discussions since last few months. 

Kane Williamson and Cheteshwar Pujara have played for Yorkshire before. So they are known to the setup and obviously preferred choices. Moreover. Kane Willaimson would be captaincy material option whenever Root is playing internatioanl matches and gary Ballance of Yorkshire is selected in England test squad. 

(2) Pujara is expected to play in  Leeds Bradford MCCU fixture which is on April 7. Yorkshires will play 3 Division one matches post the MCCU match, 2 matches in May. The starts the Royal London One Day cup which Pujara will not play imo. In June second half  there are 2 County matches for Yorkshire.In July there is only one county match. In June and July the Royal One Dya comp and T20 blast will be played from May - August hence there will be hardly any county matches for all teams including Yorkshire. Spetember onwards county matches wills tart as royal One Day comp will be over and only T20 blast final is scheduled in Spetember.

April : MCCU + 3 matches
May: 1 match
June: 2 matches 
July: 1 match
August: 2 matches
September: 4 matches


(3) Kane Williamson will join only in late July.I think he will play most of the T20 blast and second half of the county championships. Last year Yorkshire failed ot qualify in T20 blast, so i see Kane Williamson's signing is mor ein improving their chances in T20 blast. I don't see kane Williamson playing more than 4 county matches as he would ebe available for just 7 to 8 weeks.


(4) England play India from July 4 to September 11 in T20, ODI and Test series. So Root will not play most of the county matches. The fixture of the July county matches clash with the India test series in September. england has international cricket in May , June and July so Root will miss some matches. even when Root is in Yorkshire team, he wont bat 3 imo.


(5) Considering all the points No.s 1 to 4 i think Pujara is a key international signing. There is not a challenge to his No.3  spot and he will bat there imo. 

 

It will be beneficial to Yorkshire because they can transition from Pujara to Kane Williamson when Pujara would be busy in test series against England in England. 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Stumped said:

With Root, Ballance and Bairstow all with the team early season I reckon Root could quite possibly bat at 3. The chances of Ballance getting an England call up this year are extremely low.

Ballance bats at 4 for Yorkshire. Likewise Jonny too is a middle order batsman for them. The only contender for No. 3 is Joe Root. 

Link to comment

He needs all the practice he can get 

 

kohli different lol . Can see why he didn’t think need warm up games for sa as he rocked up and was top runs scorer in the series . He just assumed everyone is genius like him 

 

kohli don’t need county cricket . He just needs to turn up one week before . Make sure gets decent rest , have a few hits in nets, relax , do some shopping in Harrods and still wil score triple runs min that pujara makes ! 

 

 

Link to comment
36 minutes ago, Stumped said:

That's my point, with Ballance at 4 and Bairstow shortly after Root at 3 seems more likely with Pujara at 5.

Joe root used to open before he made England debut. iirc he moved to 3 only after his England debut. There is a possibility of Joe batting at 4. It cannot be ruled out. Both Yorkshire openers had a ordinary season last time and there is pressure on both to deliver this year. Maybe they would move Ballance at 4. There are options. Also they would not like to shift batting order when Willaimson joins. I think they will keep No 3 for overseas spot. Only time will tell what actually happens though.

Link to comment
20 hours ago, King Tendulkar said:

He needs all the practice he can get 

 

kohli different lol . Can see why he didn’t think need warm up games for sa as he rocked up and was top runs scorer in the series . He just assumed everyone is genius like him 

 

kohli don’t need county cricket . He just needs to turn up one week before . Make sure gets decent rest , have a few hits in nets, relax , do some shopping in Harrods and still wil score triple runs min that pujara makes ! 

 

 

Um England & SA are extremely different. Kohli has never had a bad series where pitches have pace and bounce - did well in SA last time & in Australia. He has an issue with the swinging ball. Whether Kohli likes it or not, he is still susceptible outside his off-stump. Maybe not county cricket, but he certainly needs to get to England early & practice against the swinging Dukes ball in those conditions. We will go there soon after the IPL where, for over a month he will chasing those wide deliveries on the 5th stump, no matter how great you are, muscle memory is a real thing, the only way to counter it is to practice & teach your muscles to leave the sucker ball alone in those conditions. If Kohli is deluded enough to think that even he can just rock up and starting coming good with 5 days of practice, in a demanding environment then, unfortunately, we might be watching a repeat of the last tour. 

 

BTW, your namesake spends most of his time in England these days, Kohli will do himself good by going early and spending some time with him. He might learn something about adapting around technical flaws in a short time.

Edited by despondent_artist
added content
Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...