IPL 2019: Cheteshwar Pujara Should Have Been Part of the Tournament

Former Team India skipper and a coach, Anil Kumble is of the opinion that Cheteshwar Pujara and Ishant Sharma deserves to play in the Indian Premier League as both have abilities to perform in the shortest format of the game. Ishant Sharma who was unsold last season was bought by Delhi Capitals this year. However, Cheteshwar Pujara remained unsold. Anil Kumble feels that Test players should also be part of the tournament. He also lauded Ishant Sharma for doing well in his stint with the Delhi Capitals so far.

“Test players who are playing for India like Ishant and Pujara as well should be a part of the league. I am glad that Ishant finally got a chance to play and is doing really well,” Anil Kumble was quoted as saying by Times of India.

“Ishant has both the skills and the confidence. He has done extremely well in Test cricket in the recent past and deserves a place in the IPL. It is unfortunate that some players have to miss out,” the former leggie further added.

Meanwhile, Cheteshwar Pujara was part of the IPL from 2010 to 2014. Since then he has not been picked by any of the franchises for his reputation of playing really slow. Cheteshwar Pujara played for Kolkata Knight Riders, Kings XI Punjab and Royal Challengers Bangalore but failed to find a foot in the showpiece T20 event.

He is a first choice player in the longest format of the game. However, he has been ignored by IPL franchises in the last few years. Despite having a base price of just Rs 50 lakhs, the exceptional Test batsman went unsold.

Cheteshwar Pujara went onto score his maiden T20 century during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He also became the first ever batsman from Saurashtra to win a century in the T20 format. Pujara is a terrific player and has a temperament which can be compared only to Rahul Dravid or a Sunil Gavaskar. Meanwhile, Anil Kumble also praised the young talents like Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant. He lauded them for being fearless and playing their brand of cricket.

“The young guns are fearless. We saw that with Prithvi Shaw, with Rishabh Pant in the game against Mumbai Indians and it’s amazing to see such talent,” he said.

Meanwhile, the 12th edition of Indian Premier League got underway a few days ago and it was Chennai Super Kings who started of the tournament with a comprehensive 7 wickets victory against the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings are currently at the top of the points table with two victories from as many matches.