Virat Kohli pays heartfelt tribute to Cheteshwar Pujara after latter’s retirement

Former Indian captain Virat Kohli congratulated Cheteshwar Pujara on his successful career. Pujara announced his retirement after playing 103 Tests and 5 ODIs for India on Sunday. He scored 7,195 Test runs at an average of 43.60, with 19 hundreds and 35 fifties.

Overall, Pujara finishes with 21301 runs from 278 first-class games at an average of 51.82 and 66 hundreds and three triple hundreds. Kohli gave his gratitude to Pujara for making his job easier at the number four position. 

Virat Kohli wrote on his Instagram story, “Thank you for making my job easier at 4 Pujji. You’ve had an amazing career. Congratulations and wish you the best for what’s ahead. God bless 🙌 @cheteshwar_pujara.”

Pujara was known to bat time and thus played a key role in playing out the new ball, which made it easier for the following batters.

On the other hand, former Indian veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin said Pujara played an instrumental role in helping Virat Kohli score his runs.

“Pujara’s contribution at No. 3, if you agree or don’t, was instrumental in helping Virat Kohli also make a lot of his runs, and I have one such case as an example. In the final Test against South Africa at the Wanderers, where the pitch was deemed too dangerous at one stage, Pujara played 53 balls before he got off the mark. A thankless job a really, really, spiteful Wanderers pitch, the ball was going all over the place,” Ashwin said in a tribute video for Pujara on his YouTube channel.

Ashwin tipped Pujara as a Test legend and said his contributions to Indian cricket are up there with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

“He is a Test legend, an absolute massive legend of Indian cricket, his contribution is no less than anyone else. I would put my head on the block, his contribution is not less than anyone else, whether it be Virat, or Rohit, or anybody,” he added.

Pujara is expected to be seen in a commentator role.