Cheteshwar Pujara lauds BCCI’s new Test incentive policy to promote Test cricket

Veteran batter Cheteswar Pujara lauded BCCI and its secretary Jay Shah for introducing a Test incentive policy to promote red-ball cricket in India. Notably, after the historic series win against England in Dharamshala, Shah announced that the players who would consistently play Test cricket for India would be rewarded with monetary benefits as the cricketers can at least earn INR 60 lakhs per match by playing the longest format of the game.

Pujara believes that this decision would encourage young cricketers to play more red-ball cricket as they would earn the same amount of money if not more in comparison to IPL or franchise cricket in general. 

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“Just got back from a refreshing trip with the family, and it is even more refreshing to see such a great initiative by Jay Shah and the BCCI! It will surely reward and encourage those performing for the country in the purest format of the game!" Pujara wrote on his X account.

Notably, the 36-year-old has played 103 Test matches for India but after a couple of poor series, he was dropped as Yashasvi Jaiswal was favoured ahead of him. Since then, Pujara has devoted his time to domestic cricket and scored plenty of runs but a return to the national team seems unlikely at the moment. However, when the Indian team travels to Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy towards the end of the year, Pujara might get a call-up as he has the experience of tackling the Aussie quicks, more than any player in the team. However, nothing seems concrete at the moment.

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India would play a couple of Test series ahead of that. They are slated to host Bangladesh and New Zealand later this year but BCCI is yet to confirm the dates. Playing at home, the Rohit Sharma-led side would be confident of their chances as two back-to-back series win can help India qualify for the World Test Championship final for the third time in a row.