Cheteshwar Pujara will head to England to play county cricket again this year after Yorkshire has signed him for his second stint with the club. This will be his second season with the club, after playing for them in their championship-winning year in 2015. His stint will be right before India begins its Test series in England.
Despite a deal for being struck several weeks ago, the club’s announcement has been purposely delayed until after the Indian Premier League auction.
The 29-year-old, who will share overseas duties with New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, is set to arrive in the United Kingdom just in time for the Leeds Bradford MCCU fixture on April 7. India are scheduled to play a one-off Test against Afghanistan in Bengaluru from June 14-18, and Pujara is set to leave for that after the Royal London 50-Over clash at Lancashire.
Yorkshire is hoping Pujara will return in time for an away trip to Hampshire, in the Specsavers County Championship, on June 20. The club also said that Pujara may stay on after India’s five-match Test tour of England between August 1 and September 11.
“There is also potential for Pujara to stay on after the India’s summer Test tour to play the final home fixture against Hampshire (Sep 18) followed by the trip to New Road to face Worcestershire (Sep 24),” the club said in its website.
The addition of a second overseas batsman means Yorkshire will have three of the top six Test batsmen on their staff in 2018, with Root (three), Williamson (four) and Pujara (six).
“I’m really excited to be able to have the opportunity to represent Yorkshire once again,” Pujara said.
“It’s always nice to be able to come over here and play some County Cricket and I’m just as excited as I was last time to represent the Club. I love the passion the people of Yorkshire have for the game and they made me feel very welcome. I know quite a few of the players, so I’ll just try to play my natural game and score plenty of runs for the Club,” he added.
“It’s an honour for me to play for the same county as Yuvraj Singh and Sachin Tendulkar and each time I’ve played county cricket it has improved me as a player. That’s the plan again in 2018.
I just want to score as many runs as possible for Yorkshire and soak up as much as I can from the whole experience.”
Pujara, who scored a record-breaking 12th double century towards the end of 2017, averages 56.68 in first-class cricket. His County Championship record stands at 816 runs with three fifties and as many hundreds. One of each came in Yorkshire colours in the early stages of the Clubs second successive Championship winning year.
“It goes without saying that Cheteshwar is a highly- driven individual and very skilled batsman. We’re delighted to have him on board. He proved to be a very likable character the last time he was with us and the plan is for him to relieve some of the pressure on the top order that we struggled with at times in 2017,” said Director of Cricket Martyn Moxon.
With inputs from PTI
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