When he is at home in Mumbai, Sarfaraz Khan and younger brother Musheer are inseparable from their father, coach and warden Naushad. And even when he was not present at the Chinnaswamy Stadium to watch his elder son score for the Ranji Trophy final, which he called his best innings, Naushad was constantly on Sarfaraz’s mind.
After scoring 134, his fourth century of the Ranji season, to take Mumbai to 374 in their first innings against Madhya Pradesh on the second day of the final, Sarfaraz broke down with emotion while speaking to reporters. In this era of rehearsals, hectic interactions between cricketers and media, here was a young man who was not shying away from flaunting his feelings in public.
Sarfaraz said, “This century is due to my father (father), his sacrifices and my holding my hand when I could have been down and out,” said Sarfaraz, holding back the tears and slowly speaking his words. to take out. “You all go, what happened to me? Abbu na rahete toh main khatam ho hota (You all know what phase I went through and had I not had a father, I would have ended by now), says Sarfaraz, unable to figure out how he went to Uttar Pradesh A spot towards Mumbai, and then was back to serve the cooling-off period to make a spectacular comeback in 2019-20.
1⃣3⃣4⃣ run
2⃣4⃣3⃣ balls
1⃣3⃣ fours
2⃣ sixesSarfaraz Khan performed brilliantly with the bat and scored a brilliant century @paytm #Ranji Trophy #The last, I #MPVMUM , @MumbaiCricAssoc
Watch his Dastak https://t.co/UNQnmA3SyU
— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) 23 June 2022
“What a struggle it has been and when I think about how my dad dealt with it all, I get emotional. He didn’t leave my hand even once. My brother put a status on his cell phone and I could see that Abbu was very happy. this made my day.”
Sarfaraz, who is asked by his father to follow a routine of facing at least 400 balls in a day, said scoring a century for Mumbai in the Ranji final was a collective family dream which he has now fulfilled . He credited his unbeaten 71 in the second innings of Karnataka’s defeat at the Bandra-Kurla Complex ground in Mumbai in early 2020 to kickstart his stellar run, which is still on.
“In our lives, it’s all about the little dreams that we harbor. The dreams we (he and his father) have together. That’s about 2000 runs in the two seasons I’ve had since my return to Mumbai. Yes, it is because of my father.
“When I was a little boy, my dream was to score a century wearing the Mumbai jersey. When I made that dream come true, the dream was to score a century in the final of Ranji Trophy when the team was in a precarious position. That’s why I was full of emotions after the century.”
Sarfaraz said that after being dismissed in a reverse sweep attempt in the first innings of the semi-final against Uttar Pradesh, he decided that he would stick to the wicket this time around. “This is my best innings in Ranji Trophy as it is the final and it happened when the team was in a difficult position. We were losing wickets when we shouldn’t have. My target was that no matter what happens, I will not bowl my wicket even if the runs come in one and two and I have to play 300 balls instead of 200. ,
After the end of the day’s play, national selector and former India left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi spoke to Sarfaraz for about ten minutes. Without divulging other details of the conversation, Sarfaraz said Joshi had praised the MP for keeping the runs despite stopping the sweep – a strong scoring shot.
“He understood that Chandu sir (MP coach Chandrakant Pandit) told his bowlers to block my sweep shot and they said it was good that I could rotate the strike even when my pet shot was blocked was.”