After Sarfaraz Khan reached 50 in the Irani Cup, Prithvi Shaw reportedly recalled telling colleagues in the Mumbai dressing room to put their feet up. Sarfaraz ended up with a 221* score. The Mumbai run machine’s first-ever 150 in international cricket on Saturday added to his tally of ten previous first-class scores of 150 or more, three of which were over 200 and one triple hundred. It took him four Test matches to reach that point. Sarfaraz-Pant flourish redefines India Test batting.
Sarfaraz is a valuable acquisition, hailing from Mumbai, a city that continues to serve as a conveyor belt for supplying batters from India. However, as several of his eighteen fours and three sixes demonstrate, he goes about things his way. The rise of diverse batting styles has never been more evident than in the case of Delhi school product Sarfaraz and Rishabh Pant, who both achieved international success. The school also created the Virender Sehwag style of batting. In Test cricket at least, they have access to scoring areas of the field that were previously inaccessible.
Despite the existence of a fly slip, Sarfaraz seized the hook set by the Kiwi bowlers on Saturday morning and proceeded with his slices and glides. Or Pant, who found another method to score by guiding the ball for boundaries in the third man area when New Zealand brought the “keeper up to pacers to stop him from stepping out.” Reaching the reverse V is just as big of a scoring opportunity for these hitters as it is in T20s, as seen by the ramps and higher cuts played by Sarfaraz on Day 3.
However, it’s really impressive to watch Sarfaraz and Pant score above the ‘keeper. As an observer, it makes you stand up,” remarked Sunil Gavaskar, who reached record-breaking batting heights by adhering to a textbook approach. “Orthodontists have played cricket. Sarfaraz’s distinct approach is refreshing in this instance. His hitting has a certain inventiveness and cheekiness to it.
Many people have compared this strategy to Pakistani great Javed Miandad. Playing a lot against Miandad, Gavaskar stated that the only similarities are in game awareness and being aware of the fielders’ whereabouts.
Sarfaraz is attempting to locate holes in order to get singles and twos even when he is not receiving boundaries. That reminds me of Miandad,” he remarked.
Although Sarfaraz and Pant’s scoring might cause havoc for the opponent, they are well aware of their advantages and disadvantages. Sarfaraz would have most likely pushed the rising ball over the ‘keeper after it caught KL Rahul’s outside edge off the off-stump of William O’Rourke.
So I want to play against tall bowlers. To me, most of them were bowling short. I was playing in the third man region as a result,” Sarfaraz clarified.
Is playing backyard cricket the same as taking on a 6’4″ international fast bowler? That also indicates how much people trust the players from the younger age.
“I would have scored straight if they had bowled full. I was only teasing. When challenged about not scoring enough in the V, Sarfaraz responded, “I was not thinking where the runs were coming.”
It was effective batting to the limit if Sarfaraz and Pant could wreck havoc for more than three hours in a 177-run partnership promising to shift the tide of the Test. Pant would counter the spin with a reverse sweep in response to Rachin Ravindra’s left-arm delivery. Even though Sarfaraz would nearly completely blind Ajaz Patel with his paddle sweep, the ball would nonetheless reach the fine leg boundary as planned. The bowler grinned in appreciation as well.
Mumbai’s batting philosophy was to be efficient without giving anything away. “Khadoos” was just that. Gavaskar remarked, “He has absorbed the way Sarfaraz has batted.
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