Cheteshwar Pujara: The Wall From Rajkot Bids Farewell To Cricket

Cheteshwar Pujara, India’s long-serving No.3 in Test cricket, has announced his retirement from all forms of the game, bringing to a close a career that combined resilience, determination, and an appetite for marathon batting. From a small-town boy in Rajkot to becoming one of India’s all-time greats, Pujara’s journey is a story of grit in an era increasingly dominated by flamboyance.

Over the course of 103 Tests, Pujara amassed 7,195 runs at an average of 43, placing him eighth on India’s list of highest run-getters. He sits just above stalwarts like Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohammad Azharuddin. For a nation that has periodically produced batting icons, Pujara carved a unique niche as a classical Test cricketer who valued patience over pyrotechnics.

His crowning glory came in 2018, when he single-handedly took on Australia in their own backyard. Scoring three centuries, 521 runs, and facing a remarkable 1,258 deliveries, he was named Man of the Series as India secured their first-ever Test series triumph Down Under after 71 years of trying. That unforgettable series remains Pujara’s most celebrated achievement — one that even surpasses the more decorated resumes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, or Virat Kohli in the context of Australia.

Pujara’s record in domestic and first-class cricket is equally staggering. With over 41,700 balls faced and 66 hundreds, including multiple triple centuries, his name sits alongside legends like Don Bradman, Wally Hammond, and Patsy Hendren in terms of double-hundreds. His consistency and hunger for long innings made him a bedrock not just for India, but also for his state side Saurashtra and the English counties he represented.

Pujara last played in the Indian Premier League in 2014. In total, he played 30 IPL games and has one half-century to his name.

The path wasn’t smooth. Repeatedly overlooked despite record-breaking performances, labelled “too slow” and “unfit for modern cricket,” and enduring personal hardships like the loss of his mother as a teenager, Pujara relied on his spiritual grounding and unshakable discipline to prove critics wrong time and again.

Often described as an “unsung hero,” Pujara’s value was never lost on connoisseurs of Test cricket. Shubman Gill once remarked that what inspired his generation wasn’t just Pujara’s 500 runs in Australia, but the 1,200-plus balls he faced — a new benchmark for perseverance and determination.

As he walks away at 37, Pujara leaves behind a legacy of patience and fight — a reminder that Test cricket is not only about boundaries and strike-rates, but about character. From Rajkot’s dusty pitches to cricket’s grandest stages, Pujara rewrote what it means to be India’s modern-day “Wall.”