Stats: Cheteshwar Pujara takes 42 balls to open his account in County game

Cheteshwar Pujara has had a tough time in the whites in his ongoing stint with Yorkshire as the Indian star Test batsman recorded low scores in the County Championship. Pujara scored only 132 runs in the first five County games at a low average of 13.20 without a fifty in the 10 innings. He had a far better outing in the Royal London One-Day Cup where he scored 370 runs with a century and three fifties. Things got worse for Pujara after returning from the India-Afghanistan Test that had an early finish.

He faced Dale Steyn in the One-Day Cup semis where he was caught in the slips without scoring. Two days later, both the International players faced off in the County game and Pujara repeated his score as Steyn cleaned up his stumps. In the ongoing home fixture against Surrey, Pujara had to wait more than an hour to open his account. Facing the likes of Morne Morkel, Rikki Clarke and Jade Dernbach, he batted out 41 consecutive dot balls before getting off the mark.

He struck a boundary through the covers against Ryan Patel who took a 6-wicket haul in space of 3.4 overs against Somerset last week. Pujara walked in after Yorkshire lost the wicket of Alex Lees in the 2nd over. He shared a 45-run stand with the other opener Adam Lyth who was batting on 42 by the time Pujara had the first run to his name. Lyth got out in the next over to Morkel while Pujara scored 23 off 111 balls before getting out to young spinner Amar Virdi.

He needed somewhere between 70-73 minutes to open his account in this innings. During the Johannesburg Test this year, Pujara got off the mark in the first innings after facing 54 balls in about 79 minutes. Thus, he became the first player in the first-class history to bat more than 70 minutes without scoring at the start of an innings on two different occasions. There are only six known instances of players not scoring a run in their first 70 minutes at the crease in a County Championship innings before today.

All those previous six instances in county cricket occurred in the 2nd inning and all of them were recorded prior to 1984. Among Indian players, only four players have batted more than 70 minutes in a first-class innings without scoring a run. Sunil Joshi batted 120 minutes faced 100 balls and remained unbeaten on zero which is a world record. Yuzvendra Chahal once batted 79 minutes without scoring before getting stumped for nought on the 77th ball.

(Stats as on June 25, 2018)