Watch: Cheteshwar Pujara reveals why he retired — 'Right time for me to move on …'

Cheteshwar Pujara has revealed that his decision to walk away from Indian cricket was not a sudden move but something he had weighed carefully over the past week. The 37-year-old batter announced his retirement from all forms of Indian cricket on Sunday, drawing the curtain on a 15-year international career defined by grit, patience and a classical batting style rarely seen in the modern era. “This plan was going on for a week. I have not been a part of the Indian team for the last few years, but now I thought that this is the right time because young players have got an opportunity in domestic cricket, which is why I made this decision,” Pujara told reporters in Rajkot, as quoted by ANI. He added that the call was taken after consultation with those closest to him. “When you take such a big decision, you take this decision only after talking to your family and your biggest players, so I consulted everyone, and then I decided that it is important to move on,” he said. Pujara made his Test debut in 2010 and went on to represent India in 103 matches, scoring 7,195 runs at an average of 43.60, including 19 centuries and 35 fifties. He was dropped after India’s defeat in the World Test Championship final in 2023 and never returned to the national side, though he continued to feature for Saurashtra and Sussex in domestic and county cricket. Among his many contributions, Pujara singled out India’s historic wins in Australia as the highlights of his career. He was the leading run-scorer in the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, amassing 521 runs in a series that delivered India’s first-ever Test triumph Down Under. He also played a key role in the 2020-21 series victory, absorbing body blows and pressure to grind out vital runs. “I have a lot of memories but definitely like you said the Australian tour in 2018 when the Indian team won the series for the first time in Australia that was the biggest and most important series. After that in 2021 we won the series on Australian soil with our weak team, so those two series were very memorable,” Pujara recalled.