Amid a transitional phase of Team India with the stepping down of Virat Kohli as Test captain and Ajinkya Rahane losing place, a new name emerges from Mumbai. 24-year-old batter Sarfaraz Khan scored 982 runs in six matches of lately concluded Ranji Trophy season. He surprised many including legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar with an astonishing average of 122.75. He smashed double fifties and four centuries.
The door of Sarfaraz Khan seems open to get a call from the selection committee for a place in Team India as Ishant Sharma has lost his place and Cheteshwar Pujara is getting one last chance to keep his place intact. Following the England tour and the T20 World Cup, India is to host Australia for test matches later this year.
The young Mumbaikar surprised cricket fans for the second time. He scored 900+ runs in the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy season. The extraordinary performance in back-to-back seasons caught the attention of chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar, who has called his name for inclusion in Team India.
Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar named Sarfaraz in a press conference explaining the reasons the young Mumbaikar has test potential and believes his selection in the Indian Test team could be on the card.
Sarfaraz received the Player of the Series trophy for being the highest scorer in the 2022 Ranji Trophy season. He talked about his roller-coaster journey in cricketing and how he tried to get better to prove his ability in the end. He thanked his father for the success and said to have always looked for staying longer hours on the pitch and making more runs.
The right-hander said his initial dream during the early days when he stepped into cricket practice was to score a century for Mumbai while playing in the Ranji. The dream has now been fulfilled. His other dream was to score 100+ in the final match of the Ranji Trophy. He fulfilled the second dream too.
Sarfaraz used to play about 700 balls on a daily basis at the Cross Maidan and especially against the swinging ball. Considering to play first-class games in the future, he used to focus on leaving the balls as staying on the wicket for the first hour is important to become an attacking batsman whom nobody can stop.
It is yet to witness whether the selectors are really taking note of Sarfaraz Khan whose run scores on the board for the 2021-22 Ranji season are 275, 63, 48, 165, 153, 40, 59 (not out) and 134.
The other Ranji Trophy players who deserve a place in Team India include Rajat Patidar from Madhya Pradesh, Shahbaz Ahmed from West Bengal, Arzan Nagwaswalla who was picked as a standby player last year for the World Test Championship and Saurabh Kumar from Uttar Pradesh.