Rajkot: Former England captain Alastair Cook was in complete awe of Sarfaraz Khan as the youngster scored a free-flowing 62 in his maiden innings I international cricket against England in the ongoing third Test on Thursday. Sarfaraz was one of the two debutants for India in the middle-order as the hosts missed the services of Shreyas Iyer, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul. While Iyer was dropped after a string of below-par shows, Rahul (injury) and Kohli (personal reasons) were ruled out.
Coming in after the fall of captain Rohit Sharma, Sarfaraz took his time in the middle initially before playing his natural game, like the way he has done for Mumbai in domestic cricket. The right hander played positive cricket and was particularly harsh against spinners Tom Hartley and Rehan Ahmed.
“I enjoyed Sarfaraz’s batting. I was intrigued to see him because you don’t average 70 runs in first-class cricket without being a serious player or run-getter,” legendary Cook was quoted by TNT Sports. Hailing from Mumbai, Sarfaraz has been a consistent performer in Ranji Trophy for the past few seasons.
In fact for two consecutive seasons in 2019/20 and 2021/22, Sarfaraz scored 900-plus runs in the Ranji Trophy. Cook also indicated the placid wickets in India and likes the way Sarfaraz played late against the spinners.
“You sometimes question some of the stats in the Ranji Trophy because they play on some really flat wickets – Jadeja has got a triple hundred there. But actually, this guy can bat. It was a real shame he was run out. I liked how positive he was and how late he played the ball to the spinners,” he further added.
Such was his domination in the middle, Sarfaraz also equalled Hardik Pandya to become the joint second-fastest India to score a Test fifty on debut. Both Sarfaraz and Hardik scored their half-centuries in 48 balls.
However, it was a miss-communication between him and Ravindra Jadeja the made Sarfaraz run out. At the end of the day, India were at 326/5 with Jadeja (110 batting) and Kuldeep Yadav (1 batting) in the crease. It was Jadeja’s fourth Test hundred and second at the Saurashtra Cricket Association stadium.
Earlier, captain Rohit Sharma also stood tall with his 11th Test ton to revive India. With the hosts reeling at 33/3, Rohit and Jadeja forged a 204-run stand for the fourth wicket to save the sinking ship. Rohit got out for 131. On Day 2, there is still more batting to come for India with another debutant Dhruv Jurel and Ravichandran Ashwin yet to bat.
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