Not being picked in the Test team despite his monster first-class numbers upset him, but he isn’t about to give up
Kunal Kishore18-Jan-2023It’s the new word doing the rounds in the cricket circuit these days: . It doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as does, but Sarfaraz Khan will take it. After all, his job, as spelt out by his father Naushad Khan, is “to keep scoring runs, for whichever team, all the time”. Since his second coming, so to say, he has been doing it in first-class cricket better than most others ever do.The ‘A’ tour of Bangladesh didn’t go well for him, but Sarfaraz has since hit three centuries in seven Ranji Trophy innings, following on from his tally of 928 runs from nine innings at 154.66 and 982 runs from nine innings at 122.75 in the two previous Ranji seasons. There were seven centuries in there, including a triple-hundred, against Uttar Pradesh, in January 2020. The latest big one, an innings of 125 in 155 balls, came in a stuttering Mumbai batting effort in Delhi yesterday, when the next best score was Prithvi Shaw’s 40, and the team totalled just 293.The first-class average of 80.47 from 36 matches (before the latest century) was always going to bring Don Bradman into the discussion, and it did after play on Tuesday. “It gives me happiness that I have been close to his [Bradman’s] record in the last three seasons,” he said. “It won’t always be the same, but I am happy to be around him right now.” For the record, while Bradman averaged 99.94 in Tests, his first-class average was marginally lower, at 95.14.Related
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With numbers like these, it’s understandable that there has been a clamour to give him a chance at the Test level. Of late, whenever an Indian Test squad has been announced, and he has not featured in it, eyebrows have been raised. On January 13, when the squad for the first two Tests against Australia was named, the general feeling was: what more does Sarfaraz need to do? It crossed his mind too.”My father came [to Delhi] a couple of days ago, and I trained with him for two days in Ghaziabad [near Delhi] before the game. He knew I was upset [at not being selected],” Sarfaraz said. “So he said, ‘Our job is to keep scoring runs, for whichever team, all the time’. Since I was a child, whenever I have been a bit confused, or things have not gone right, he does the same thing, he just motivates me and gives me confidence, and prepares me mentally.”