10 things you need to know about Sarfaraz Khan
1) Sarfaraz Khan was born on 27 October 1997 in Mumbai. He shares his birthday with Sri Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara who was born exactly 20 years before Sarfaraz’s birth. He was just 10 when the IPL began in 2008.
2) Sarfaraz’s father Naushad Khan was a renowned cricketer in Mumbai during his playing days and is a well-known coach these days. Naushad discovered talent like Iqbal Abdulla (who is Sarfaraz’s teammate at Royal Challengers Bangalore right now) and Kamran Khan.
3) Sarfaraz used to sleep amidst his father’s kit bags at Azad Maidan when he first started attending cricket matches as a toddler.
4) He came into the limelight when, at an age of 12, he struck a then-record score of 439 in the Harris Shield inter-school tournament. This is the same tournament where most of India heard the name Sachin Tendulkar for the first time when the little master had scored 326 in a match in 1988.
5) Sarfaraz was once suspended by the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on accusations of fudging his age. But those charges were dropped after the youngster passed an advanced test.
6) The Mumbai-lad has faced a number of disciplinary issues in the past. He was thrown out of a cricket camp by the MCA indoor academy on such grounds and in the ongoing IPL, he is said to have got into a scuffle with Kolkata Knight Riders batsman Robin Uthappa.
7) In a recent domestic T20 match, Sarfaraz was on strike when Mumbai needed three runs to win from the final delivery of the match against Baroda. The 17-year-old remained ice-cool and scooped the last ball for a six.
8) When he made his IPL debut against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) last week, at the age of 17 years and 177 days, he became the youngest player to play in an IPL match.
9) Sarfaraz scored 211 runs at an average of 70.33 in last year’s U-19 World Cup, which saw him being included in the team of the tournament. His best performance in that tournament came against Pakistan – scoring 74 and picking up figures of 1/10 in 3 overs with the ball – which earned him the Man of the Match award.
10) Sarfaraz’s younger brother Musheer Khan is considered to be as talented. Musheer’s talent was so visible from a young age that he made his debut in the Giles Shield U-14 tournament (an inter-school cricket competition) at the age of 6 years, 9 months.
[Facts via ESPN Cricinfo and Mohandas Menon]