Born on 27 October 1997 at Mumbai in India, Sarfaraz Khan is a right-handed middle-order batsman and a leg-break bowler. He is probably the most popular uncapped young sensation of the nation who became known among the masses during his IPL tenure with RCB.
Sarfaraz Khan came into the limelight when he broke the 45-year-old record of Sachin Tendulkar by scoring 439 off 421 balls in a Harris Shield game. It was his maiden Harris Shield game in 2009 when he was just 12 years old.
Sarfaraz made his debut in List-A in a match against Saurashtra in Vijay Hazare Trophy 2014. His unbeaten 17 off 15 balls led the team to victory in the close game. A few months later he played his debut First-class cricket in a match against Bengal in Ranji Trophy 2014. He failed to impress as he got out on a measly score of 1.
After his father’s insistence, Sarfraz moved to the Uttar Pradesh Cricket team for the Ranji Trophy. But it turned out to be far from a memorable experience as the middle-order batsman featured in just eight Ranji games for UP during his three seasons. By September 2019 he had only played 11 first-class matches and had scored 535 runs with the highest score of 155. He had also played 12 List A matches and had scored 257 runs at a strike rate of 96.25
Having returned to Mumbai at the beginning of last season, Sarfaraz served the mandatory one-year cooling-off period, Sarfaraz couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity than a face-off against UP to notch up his first century which he later converted into a maiden triple-century.
Sarfraz Khan on the back of impressive domestic performances made the cut to the U-19 World Cup side in 2014 where India finished fifth in the standings. He scored 211 runs in six games which included two fifties at an average of 70.33, and he ended up a strike rate of 105.5. Still in the required age bracket to represent India in the age-cricket, Sarfaraz Khan played the 2016 edition of the U-19 World Cup too. In the tournament, Sarfaraz finished as the second-highest run scorer. He scored 355 runs from six innings, with five scores of over 50, at an average of 71. At the Under-19 level he has the record for most number of fifties in World Cups (7 fifties across two World Cups).
The hard-hitting Sarfaraz Khan became the youngest to be picked up by a franchise in the 2015 IPL Auction by Royal Challengers Bangalore and spent four seasons under the tutelage of Virat Kohli, where he managed to make a mark with his unique batting. He shot to fame with his unbeaten knock of 45 off 21 Rajasthan Royals. While walking back to the dressing room after playing that innings, RCB skipper Virat Kohli bowed in front of the 17-year-old - an unforgettable moment.
After being released by RCB, the Mumbai-born batsman was picked up by Kings Xi Punjab (KXIP) for INR 25 lakhs at the player auctions prior to IPL 2019 and was retained ahead of the 2020 season. In 2019, he played 8 games and made 180 runs. Sarfaraz is highly talented and he has it in him to get that one big knock which will pitchfork him into prominence.
Still only 22, Sarfaraz has the experience of playing against opposition on pitches across the world thanks to exposure in the IPL. If everything falls in place, the 2020 season could be the breakout season for him.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Mumbai, the lad was trained under the tutelage of his father and coach Naushad Khan, who was also a well-known cricketer in Mumbai in his days and was responsible for discovering talents such as Iqbal Abdullah and Kamran Khan. His father is a hard taskmaster.
