After a minor blip in the fourth Test match against England in Ranchi last week, where he fell victim to Ben Stokes’ mind game, Sarfaraz Khan bounced back on Friday to carve out another brilliant knock against the visitors. On day 2 of the fifth Test at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala, Sarfaraz scored his third half-century in his career. The knock of 56 off 60 left Mumbai teammate Suryakumar Yadav mighty in awe as he highlighted a stunning stat in his blockbuster post.
Smashing eight boundaries and a solitary six, Sarfaraz scored his third fifty in the series against England. The two others were scored on his debut appearance in Rajkot, where he ramped up fifties in both the innings.
After he reached the mark on his 55th delivery, the broadcasters highlighted a stat that Sarfaraz middled 93 per cent of the balls he faced during the knock and was beaten just three times. Sharing a screenshot of that stat as his Instagram story, Suryakumar captioned it: “Sher bhukha hai (The tiger is hungry).”
Suryakumar has been a staunch supporter of Sarfaraz as both the cricketers play for the same state team. In fact, it was Suryakumar who insisted Naushad, Sarfaraz’s father, to travel to Rajkot to watch his son’s debut. Romana Zahoor, Sarfaraz’s wife, was already present in the city and hence Naushad had planned to stay back, look after his health and help his younger son, Musheer, in his Ranji Trophy campaign. But a voice note from Suryakumar led to a change of plan.
“When my family was around when I received the Test cap last year in Nagpur, it was a surreal moment for all of us. You have to be there,” Suryakumar said in his voice-note as quoted by Sportstar.
“That forced me to alter the plans and we tried to see if all of us can come down. Due to limited flight connectivity to Rajkot, we could get only one plane ticket, but after watching the dream of the family coming true, I feel it was worth coming down at the last minute,” Naushad told the website.
