Courtesy: BCCI

Courtesy: BCCI

Cheteshwar Pujara, the Indian batting superstar, is celebrating his 37th birthday on January 25, 2025. Born and raised in Rajkot, Gujarat, Cheteshwar Pujara’s talent was recognised early by his father Arvind, a former Ranji player, along with the rest of his family, who pushed him into pursuing cricket as more than just a hobby. With some exposure to playing leather ball cricket for the first time as a 13-year-old, Pujara caught cricket like fish to water, and never looked back.

After making his U19 debut in 2005 against England in a red-ball match, in which he scored a double hundred during India’s win, he was picked in the national team for the U19 ICC Cricket World Cup next year. During this tournament, he scored 349 runs in six innings, including three fifties and a hundred, at an average of 117, to get named as the player of the tournament. Following his success with Saurashtra at the domestic level, including multiple triple hundreds at Ranji level, Pujara made the Indian cricket team in Test cricket in 2010 against Australia in Bengaluru.

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Cheteshwar Pujara won IPL with Chennai Super Kings in 2023

Over the last 14 years, Cheteshwar Pujara has played 103 Test matches for India, to get widely regarded as one of the best defensive batters of his generation with his game being quite similar to Indian legend and former head coach Rahul Dravid. He has scored 7,195 runs in 176 innings at an average of 43.60 with 19 hundreds and 35 fifties, while partaking in most of the famous Test wins for India. His highest Test score of 206* came against England in 2012 at the Motera Stadium, now called Narendra Modi Stadium, in Ahmedabad, and following that, he also brought up a couple of double hundreds against Australia at home.

Apart from his success in Test cricket, Cheteshwar Pujara has played five ODIs for India, scoring 51 runs at an average of 10.20, which is something he would have liked to do better at. As far as the IPL goes, the veteran has made just 30 appearances, scoring 390 runs at an average of 20.52 and a strike-rate of just 99.74, but he has won the coveted title once in his career for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2023.

Cheteshwar Pujara last played for India in a Test match in the summer of 2023, but he stills competes regularly at the domestic level for Saurashtra, along with some County exposure every summer, to give himself the best chance to make a final return to the Indian cricket team.