Yorkshire Sign up Cheteshwar Pujara for 2018 County Season

For the second year in a row, India’s Test batting mainstay Cheteshwar Pujara will ply his trade in the English county cricket.

Pujara has been signed up by Yorkshire for the upcoming English domestic season, Yorkshire County Cricket Club confirmed on January 30 (Tuesday).

The 30-year old had penned the deal with the club several weeks ago, but the announcement was purposely postponed, as his future was still undecided due to the Indian Premier League auction.

However, with the IPL franchises once again ignoring him, the club did not take long to announce the deal. The Saurashtra star will return to India after the Royal London 50-over game against Lancashire to play in the historic one-off Test against Afghanistan, starting on June 14 in Bangalore.

Pujara, meanwhile, is likely to join Yorkshire just in time to feature against Leeds Bradford MCCU, starting from April 7. Pujara has ample experience of playing in England. In April 2015, he was signed up by Yorkshire, as Younis Khan’s replacement. He played four matches during that season, scoring 264 runs at an average of 53.98. He had also played for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Last year, he represented Nottinghamshire, scoring 333 runs at 27.75 including a match-winning hundred against Gloucestershire.

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Expressing his delight over returning to Yorkshire, Pujara said:

“I’m really excited to be able to have the opportunity to represent Yorkshire once again. 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.

“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,” he added.

Before Pujara, Yorkshire had signed only two Indian cricketers. Sachin Tendulkar was signed up by Yorkshire in 1992 as a replacement for injured Craig McDermott while Yuvraj Singh was signed up in 2003.

Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire’s Director of Cricket, also welcomed Pujara, saying:

“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 likeable 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. Just as he did in 2015, Pujara will relish the challenge of performing in English conditions. He’s very difficult to dislodge and will hopefully dominate the crease for us during his stay.”

Meanwhile, after the Test against Afghanistan, Pujara is scheduled to return to England to play in the County Championship game versus Hampshire, starting on June 20.

The right-handed batsman can also stay in the country to play for the club after the completion of the five-match Test series between India and England to play against Hampshire and Worcestershire in September.