Cheteshwar Pujara Nominated For Indian Sports Honours

India Test star Cheteshwar Pujara is one of the high-profile names along with the likes of Olympic medallists Mary Kom and PV Sindhu to get nominated for the second edition of Indian Sports Honours. The right-handed batsman along with his India teammates Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah was nominated for the Sportsman of the Year (Team Sport) award.

Indian Sports Honours is an initiative of Virat Kohli Foundation and RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. It was started in 2018 and was a massive success. The awards will be conferred on Saturday. Eminent personalities like Pullela Gopichand, Abhinav Bindra, Sardar Singh, Mahesh Bhupathi, P T Usha and Anjali Bhagwat are the members of the jury that will pick the winners of 11 categories. The winner of the remaining six categories will be picked by the fans through an online poll.

The members of jury strikes a pose after the selection process of final nominees for #ISH!@imsardarsingh8 @Abhinav_Bindra @Maheshbhupathi @PTUshaOfficial @AnjaliOlympian #SanjivGoenka
.
.#BlueRising #2WeeksToISH #IndianSportsHonours pic.twitter.com/jIOqsys8fL

— Indian Sports Honours (@sportshonours) February 5, 2019

Pujara recently starred for India during the historic tour of Australia. In a series where most of the batsmen including Virat Kohli struggled to perform consistently, Pujara looked class apart.

While no other batsmen in the series could score more than 350 runs, Pujara scored a staggering 521 runs with the help of three centuries as India beat Australia 2-1 to register their first-ever Test series win on the Australian soil. He faced a staggering 1,258 balls in the series which is the most by an Indian in a Test series in Australia surpassing Rahul Dravid’s 1203 balls in the 2003/04 tour. The Saurashtra star batted approximately 1869 minutes in this Test series which is the third most by an Indian in a Test series.

On the other hand, Bumrah had finished the Test series as the joint highest wicket-taker, picking up 21 wickets. Rohit also had a stunning 2018 where he scored two T20I centuries in addition to leading India to titles in the Nidahas Trophy and the Asia Cup.