Sarfaraz extends prolific run with ton for Mumbai
BENGALURU: Sarfaraz Khan continued his prolific run with a superb hundred that kept his side ahead against Madhya Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy final here on Thursday.
Courtesy Sarfaraz’s fourth hundred of the season—134 off 243 balls—the 41-time champions managed a fighting 374 in their first innings after beginning the day at 248/5.
But Madhya Pradesh won’t be too unhappy as they finished the second day at 123/1 with Yash Dubey (44 batting) and Shubham Sharma (41 batting) adding 76 runs for the unbroken second wicket.
The day belonged to none other than Sarfaraz, who has now scored an astounding 937 runs in Ranji Trophy in just six games and could make it 1000 for the season if Mumbai bat again in this match.
His innings had 13 boundaries and two sixes—one over square leg off left-arm spinner Kumar Kartikeya and one down the ground against off-spinner Saransh Jain.
But what stood out was how he managed the innings after Shams Mulani was trapped leg before by Gourav Yadav (4/106) in the opening over of the second day.
His batting with the tail showed his new-found maturity, which is proving to be a boon for Mumbai cricket. He chose loose deliveries for boundaries, forcing MP captain Aditya Shrivastava to open the field.
The manner in which Sarfaraz has turned a corner since the 2019-20 season (928 runs back then) is phenomenal as he had disciplinary issues early in his career, which also forced him to leave Mumbai for a season. With father Naushad Khan, who also doubles up as his coach, making him play 400 balls (nearly 67 overs including nets and knocking) a day at practice, Sarfaraz 2.0 is a battlehardened man, the ‘khadoos street fighter’ that any captain would want to go to a war with.
Once he reached his fifty, he touched the lion’s crest on his jersey, gesturing ‘Don’t worry, I am going nowhere’.
His batting isn’t as pleasing to the eye as Prithvi Shaw’s but highly effective. He knows how to score runs on a track that is largely two-paced and in overcast conditions with the ball doing a fair bit.
When MP skipper spread the field to stop boundaries, he still found his way to play the controlled square cut off seamer Anubhav Agarwal, which bisected the two fielders stationed at deep extra cover and deep point to the fence.