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Twitter Reactions: Cheteshwar Pujara Finishes As The Star Of The Opening Day Of The Adelaide Test
By Sandy - Dec 6, 2018 6:27 pm
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Indian cricketer Cheteshwar Pujara played a saviour role for the Indian cricket team on the opening day of the four-match Test series against the hosts Australia at Adelaide. While the other batsmen struggled against the Aussie bowlers, the 30-year-old Indian right-handed batsman Pujara played a brilliant century knock that helped the visitors to manage at least a fighting first innings total.

cheteshwar
Cheteshwar Pujara

After winning the toss on Thursday morning, Indian skipper Virat Kohli decided to bat first but they had a very poor start as they were struggling on 41/4. Both the openers KL Rahul (2) and Murali Vijay (11) were dismissed cheaply, while Usman Khawaja grabbed a stunning catch at gully to dismiss the no.1 ranked Test batsman Virat Kohli (3) at the early stage. Ajinkya Rahane also followed them after scoring just 13 runs.

Also read: Ajinkya Rahane Used A Special Bat During Adelaide Test

Later, Pujara had two back-to-back 40+ partnerships with Rohit Sharma (37) and Rishabh Pant (25) but both lost their wickets after getting settled down as India was struggling on 127/6.

After that, Pujara had a fighting 62-run partnership with Ravichandran Ashwin for the seventh wicket that helped India to build up at least a fighting first innings total. During that partnership, Pujara completed his half-century in 153 balls at the early third session of the day.

Though Ashwin was dismissed on 25 runs off 76 balls (only four), Pujara continued his innings with the tail-enders, who provided a good support to him. After a 21-run partnership for the eighth wicket with Ishant Sharma, Pujara had another 40-run partnership with Mohammed Shami for the ninth wicket before losing his own wicket at the end of the day.

Despite the other wickets were falling in regular intervals since the morning, Pujara hardly lost his concentration and consistently focused to build up a respectable first innings team total on the board. Apart from providing a few tough chances, Pujara never seemed to lose his wicket on this special day.

pujara
Cheteshwar Pujara played a brilliant knock

Soon, after the second new ball was taken, Pujara completed his century in 231 balls. Since then, he played some attacking shots and scored the runs quickly. Finally, he was run-out on 123 runs off 246 balls (7 fours and 2 sixes) after a brilliant direct hit by Pat Cummins. Umpires called off the day just after his dismissal as India was batting on 250/9 and Shami was batting on 6 runs.

Also read: Cheteshwar Pujara Expected Better Application From The Indian Batsmen

Just a ball before completing his 16th Test century, Pujara completed his 5,000 Test runs in his 108 Test innings. Co-incidentally, Pujara has reached the milestones of 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 Test runs in the same number of innings that had been reached by the former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid (67, 84 and 108 innings respectively).

Here are some Twitter reactions on Pujara’s heroic batting effort: 

https://twitter.com/dizzy259/status/1070577983985860609

Tags Cheteshwar PujaraDay 1first TestIndia tour of Australia 2018/19Indian cricket team

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