[Watch] Cheteshwar Pujara Lights Up County Championship With A Majestic Hundred At Lord's
Pujara brought up his 100 with a four [X]
Cheteshwar Pujara, a cricket legend known for his excellence in red-ball cricket, scored his second century of the County season for Sussex against Middlesex at Lord's cricket stadium.
This century marked Pujara's 65th in first-class cricket. He stands behind only Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar, who have 81 centuries each, and Rahul Dravid, who has 68 tons, in the first-class cricket century count.
The seasoned number 3 batsman took 258 deliveries to notch up his century, hitting 12 boundaries during his innings.
A few weeks back, Pujara secured his first century of the season against Derbyshire. In that game, he scored 113 runs as Sussex clinched victory by 124 runs.
Pujara reached another significant milestone in February by surpassing 20,000 runs in first-class cricket, becoming only the fifth Indian player to achieve this feat.
Lately, Pujara has been sidelined from the Indian Test team setup. Instead, Shubman Gill has taken up the number 3 position, while Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal are opening the innings.
BCCI's incentive plan for red-ball cricketers
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) recently implemented a new Test cricket incentive scheme tailored for players like Cheteshwar Pujara, who primarily focus on red-ball cricket and are not part of any IPL franchise.
Under this scheme, the non-IPL contracted players stand to earn a respectable amount through Test cricket. Those who participate in less than 50% of the matches in a season will receive a match fee of Rs 15 lakh.
Players who feature in more than 50% of the matches, will receive additional incentives of Rs 30 lakh and Rs 15 lakh, respectively.
The incentives rise to Rs 45 lakh and Rs 22.5 lakh, respectively, for players appearing in over 75% of the squads.