Cheteshwar Pujara transforms into the most dependable batman in SENA countries

Cheteshwar Pujara has been playing a key role in Team India’s success in Tests. The Saurashtra batsman did not have a great tour to SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) countries during the 2014-15 season. But he has emerged as a much-improved batsman this season. Before August 2018, the 30-year-old had scored 849 runs with 17 matches with a pretty ordinary average of 27 in SENA countries.

Since then he has been in the best of form on these tours scoring 724 runs in 8 matches. Pujara had previously in Australia scored 201 in six innings when India toured Australia in 2014-15. He has completely transformed his game in the ongoing tour of Australia in 2018-19 series as he is the highest run-getter in this series so far having scored 521 runs in 7 innings which also includes 3 hundred and one half century as well with the best score of 197 in the first innings at SCG.

Pujara’s transformation

He had a poor series in New Zealand when India toured the country in 2013-14 series as he ended up scoring just 50 runs in four innings. India lost the series 1-0 and since then, haven’t toured New Zealand for a Test series.

Back in 2014 when India toured England, Pujara scored 222 runs in 8 innings. But didn’t manage to improve in his performance when the team toured in 2018. It was bizarre that the team dropped him in the first two Test against England, and later recalled him for the third Test and he ended the series scoring 278 runs in 8 innings with an average of 39.71.

Pujara had a better series back in 2013/14 where he had scored 250 runs in 4 innings which also included a century. In the year 2018 when India toured South Africa, the right-hand batsman managed just 100 in 6 innings with an ordinary average of 16.6 in a series that was dominated by the bowlers.

Coming to the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy Pujara is the highest run-getter with the possibility that he might get to bat again. The second player on the list is almost 200 runs behind and it is highly unlikely that his tally of 521 will be bettered by the end of the SCG Test.

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