Watch: Cheteshwar Pujara scored a double hundred on day three of the Saurashtra vs Jharkhand Ranji Trophy 2023/24 match in Rajkot yesterday (January 7), taking his tally of first-class double hundreds to 17.

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Pujara, who was dropped from the Indian Test teamafter the 2023 World Test Championship final against Australia, scored his 17th first-class double hundred in Saurashtra’s first match of the 2023/24 Ranji Trophy season.

Saurashtra bowled out Jharkhand for 142 in the first innings with Chirag Jani picking up five wickets, before the hosts ground the Jharkhand bowlers to dust with a mammoth first-innings score of 578-4.

Lasting 156 overs, Saurashtra’s first innings with the bat consisted of two centuries, one of which was Pujara’s double hundred. The discarded India No.3 came in to bat with the score reading 135-2 and remained unbeaten at 243 till Saurashtra declared the innings.

Pujara’s innings lasted 356 balls, during which he hit as many as 30 fours, and scored at a strike rate of 68. With this double hundred, Pujara reached joint fourth on the list of most double centuries in first-class cricket, going past CB Fry, Jack Hobbs, and Graeme Hick, all of whom have 16.

This was also his eighth double hundred in the Ranji Trophy, which means he is just one short of the record, held by Paras Dogra who has scored nine Ranji Trophy double centuries.

Jharkhand, starting their second innings with a humongous deficit of 436, responded well and were 223-3 at lunch on the final day of the match, still trailing by 213 runs.

Watch Cheteshwar Pujara reach his 17th first-class double hundred:

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