India batter Cheteshwar Pujara picked up from where he had left for English County team Sussex as he started off with an excellent century for his team’s season opener and said things that he’s been working on are “paying off”.

Away from the IPL limelight, Pujara is back at the English county which will serve as his preparation for the marquee World Test Championship final against Australia in two months’ time.  Pujara had a lackluster outing in recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 against Australia.

In reply to Durham’s 376, Sussex were struggling at 91/4 when skipper Pujara took charge of the proceedings in a 112-run partnership with Oliver Carter (41) on day two of the match, on Friday. Sussex made 335 in the first innings to cut the deficit to 41 runs.

“Things which I’ve been working on is paying off. As a batter, when you start well, you feel confident. I hope to carry on from here and keep scoring runs throughout the season,” said Pujara after his 163-ball 115, his sixth hundred for Sussex.

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“It was an important knock for the team as well. We could still have batted a bit better, but we are still not too far behind. I love batting on this pitch. It’s important to get a good start. I’m really happy with the way things went. We needed some partnerships, at one point we were in a spot of bother when we lost four wickets for 91. So that partnership was important.

Some of them were unfortunate and soft dismissals. I’ve already spoken to the guys. If we get good start we can chase it down,” Pujara added.

Cheteshwar Pujara was the fourth highest run-scorer in the championship last season with 5 centuries to his name and a total of 1094 runs in 8 games.

(PTI inputs)