Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravichandran Ashwin off to a mediocre start in County championship

Indian Test stars Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravichandran Ashwin recorded an under par start to their County Championship campaigns in the round of games which began on Monday. India’s No.3 Pujara got out for just 18 runs playing for Nottinghamshire while all-rounder Ashwin scored 36 for Worcestershire on his County debut.

At Trent Bridge, the home team Nottinghamshire elected to bat first against Northamptonshire. Pujara walked out to bat after Notts lost opener Jacob Libby in the 15th over. The right-hander hit the very first ball he faced for a boundary on the on-side. He hit a couple of more boundaries to race to 18 of just 14 balls before he was cleaned up by Mohammad Azharullah. The right-arm pacer ran through the home side’s batting by dismissing Samit Patel and Alex Hales for single digits.

Opener Steven Mullaney’s 58 and Rikki Wessels’ unbeaten 69 helped Nottinghamshire get past the 200-run mark. Azharullah bagged a 5-wicket haul while Gleeson picked up four wickets to wrap the Notts up for 213. The home team’s bowlers turned out to be too tough on Northampton as the visitors were bowled for just 141 runs in their first inning while Nottingham scored 19/0 in their 2nd inning before the end of the opening day’s play.

Ashwin’s exploits

In the other game at Worcester, Gloucestershire took on the hosts Worcestershire, who elected to bat first. Ravichandran Ashwin walked out to bat at No.6 with his side four down for 186. In this Worcestershire’s lineup, only Joe Clarke (45.23) and Daryl Mitchell (39.71) have a better batting average in first-class cricket than Ashwin who has scored his runs at 32.82 before the ongoing encounter. By featuring in this game, Ashwin joined an elite list of Indians who represented Worcestershire; Nawab of Pataudi Sr, Kapil Dev, and Zaheer Khan.

He shared a 46-run stand for the 6th wicket with Ben Cox before he was dismissed for a 50-ball 36. Ashwin struck four fours and a six in his knock before Norwell Liam Norwell who was out of the field for nearly two sessions having suffered an injury in early overs of the day sent him packing. Brett D’Oliveira’s 93 and Ben Cox’s unbeaten 56 helped the home side to end the day at 338/7. It would be interesting to see how Ashwin turns up with the ball on this track where the Gloucestershire used their spinners to bowl 51 out of the 97 overs.