The duo of Cheteshwar Pujara and Mohammad Rizwan was seen having an excellent partnership during Day 3 of Sussex’s match County Championship match against Durham on Saturday. Pujara, who seems to be going through a purple patch since the beginning of his stint with Sussex, racked up his second double-century for the team, scoring 203 off 334 deliveries, and forged a 154-run stand with Rizwan, who also scored an important 79 off 145 balls.
Ahead of the action on Day 3, Sussex shared a video of the Indo-Pakistan duo preparing for the training session ahead of the scheduled start. As Cheteshwar Pujara geared up to bat, he was seen having a conversation with Mohammad Rizwan.
Here is the video of the incident:
Rizwan x Pujara pre-match prep. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/g3vVwefsQf
— Sussex Cricket (@SussexCCC) April 30, 2022
The conversation isn’t entirely audible, but it did seem Mohamad Rizwan was talking to Pujara about his previous County stint. The fans on Twitter, meanwhile, took turns to decode the exact conversation between the pair.
https://twitter.com/adil_rash95/status/1520353169779433472?s=20&t=syW9RcUzzACpM9meA2GDFA
I heard
"IPL nahi khele iss barr"🤌
Maybe I'm wrong..— non existent (@Can_I_callumine) May 1, 2022
https://twitter.com/025ashutosh/status/1520452760432308225?s=20&t=z63m12xQnnwTCTxg-vN0nA
They're speaking in Urdu/Hindi … what an opportunity for Rizwan ❤
— Arsalan Abbasi (@Arsal83) May 1, 2022
The senior India player was batting overnight on 107, which helped his team to reach a position where they had a substantial lead against Durham, who were eventually bundled out for 223 in their first innings. Thanks to Pujara’s effort, Sussex extended their dominance on the third day of the match, their innings ending at 538 for a massive lead of 315 runs.
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With Sussex enforcing the follow-on, Durham was at 38 for no loss in their second innings and they were trailing by a huge margin of 277 runs. The out-of-favor India batter, who is in phenomenal batting form, is making most of his county stint. He now has scored two centuries and as many double centuries in his five innings.
Making his debut for Sussex, Cheteshwar Pujara had scored 6 and an unbeaten 201 to help his side draw the match against Derbyshire.
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In Sussex’s innings-and-34-run loss to Worcestershire, he had a played a brilliant knock of 109 in the first innings, followed by 12 in the second essay. The big runs will keep Pujara in contention for a place in the Indian squad when they travel to England for the postponed fifth Test later this year.
