Sarfaraz Khan joins elite club of Indian legends with maiden Test century in Bengaluru

Sarfaraz Khan is playing attacking games against the New Zealand bowlers, as he is on a mission to take India to a challenging position in the ongoing first Test at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

His classy and mesmerizing shot selection in Bengaluru made every one of his fans. On the fourth day of the opening game of the ongoing three-match Test series, Sarfaraz Khan smashed his maiden Test ton and achieved several milestones.

The Team India batter was dismissed for a duck in the first inning but made a remarkable comeback in the second. The right-handed batter smashed a century off just 110 balls at an amazing strike rate of over 90.

Sarfaraz Khan’s maiden Test ton puts him in elite company with Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Virat Kohli

With his maiden Test ton, Sarfaraz Khan became the 9th Indian player to score a hundred in the second innings after getting out for 0 in the first innings of a Test match. He has joined the elite club of cricketing legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, and Virat Kohli, who have all scored a century and a duck in the same Test match.

Additionally, Sarfaraz Khan became just the second batter to score both a duck and a century in the same Test match against New Zealand, after Shikhar Dhawan, who achieved this feat (0 and 115) in 2014 in Auckland.

Meanwhile, it was Sarfaraz Khan's 16th century in first-class cricket. Remarkably, 10 of the 26-year-old batter’s previous 15 centuries have been scores of 150 or more, including four double centuries. Sarfaraz’s most recent double hundred was an unbeaten 222 for Mumbai against the Rest of India in the Irani Cup 2024, played in Lucknow earlier this month.

Indian players with a duck in the first innings and a century in the second innings of the same Test match:

Madhav Apte- 0 and 163 (India vs West Indies, 1953)

Sunil Gavaskar- 0 and 118 (India vs Australia, 1977)

Dilip Vengsarkar- 0 and 103 (India vs England, 1979)

Mohammad Azharuddin- 0 and 109 (India vs Pakistan, 1989)

Sachin Tendulkar- 0 and 136 (India vs Pakistan, 1999)

Shikhar Dhawan- 0 and 114 (India vs New Zealand, 2014)

Virat Kohli- 0 and 104 (India vs Sri Lanka, 2017)

Shubman Gill- 0 and 119 (India vs Bangladesh, 2024)

Sarfaraz Khan- 0 and 125* (India vs New Zealand, 2024)

Rohit Sharma reveals why Sarfraz Khan kept at N0.4 in Bengaluru Test

On the other hand, during an interaction after Day 2, Indian captain Rohit Sharma explained their decision to keep Sarfaraz Khan in his usual spot in the middle or lower-middle order, at positions 4, 5, or 6. There were suggestions to move KL Rahul up to number 3 in Shubman Gill's absence.

But Rohit mentioned that the Indian cricket team management didn't want to change the batting positions of both Rahul and Rishabh Pant. As a result, Virat Kohli was promoted to the number 3 spot instead.

Rohit Sharma stated: “We wanted to give Sarfraz the position that he usually bats four, five, six maybe. But we didn't want to change Rishabh and KL (Rahul). Hence, Sarfraz went at four, and Virat batted at three.”