Sarfaraz Khan declares Rohit Sharma as his favorite player after India call-up

After Sarfaraz Khan received his maiden national call-up for India’s 2nd Test clash against England in the 5-match series, the 26-year-old rallied compliments and praise for skipper Rohit Sharma and regarded him as his favorite cricketer in the world.

Sarfaraz Khan is among the 3 players being called up by the BCCI to replace Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul who suffered Hamstring and Quadriceps injuries during the 4th day of India’s 1st Test loss by 28 runs at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium in Hyderabad.

Washington Sundar whose last appearance in whites came during England’s previous tour here in 2021, has been recalled alongside uncapped Uttar Pradesh all-rounder Saurabh Kumar. While the selection of these two players in the Indian squad hasn’t made much news, the selection of Sarfaraz Khan has become a widespread topic of discussion.

The Mumbai-born batter has been grinding himself in the domestic circuit for a couple of years now and has worked very hard for his batting performance in order to get noticed by the selectors. For many years, it remained a mystery as to why Sarfaraz Khan was constantly overlooked despite putting up impressive numbers in the Ranji trophy.

While his non-selection in the shorter formats was still justified due to the overcrowded Indian team, getting overlooked in the longest format was the biggest confusion among Indian cricket fans. Since making his Ranji Trophy debut in 2014 against Bengal, Sarfaraz has scored 3912 runs at a scary average of 69.85 along with 14 centuries and 11 half-centuries.

He also has a triple century to his name and if any other player had similar stats in the domestic circuit then they would have definitely gotten selected but it would be fair to say that Sarfaraz Khan’s journey to the Indian team has not been easy. But the journey hasn’t finished yet.

The 26-year-old will have to fight off competition from Rajat Patidar in order to get selected in the Indian playing XI for the 2nd Test. While Patidar was called up to replace Virat Kohli at number 4 before KL Rahul appeared in that position, Sarfaraz Khan has come in as Rahul’s replacement in the squad.

Both Patidar and Sarfaraz scored a lot of runs for India A during their unofficial Tests against England A and now both find themselves in a tug of war to be integrated in the XI, possibly as number 4 batter.

“Everyone Talks About The 3 Double Hundreds”, Sarfaraz Khan Reveals Dressing Room Talk About Rohit Sharma

While speaking to Sports Yaari, Sarfaraz Khan revealed that Rohit Sharma and his 3 double hundreds are very popular in the Mumbai dressing room. He also disclosed that Rohit is his favorite player at the moment and he loves to watch him play the pull shot off bouncers.

“Rohit Sharma is my favourite player – he has got very good pull shots, even in my dressing room, everyone talks about the 3 double hundreds of Rohit,” Sarfaraz said.

Meanwhile, the 2nd Test between India and England starts from February 2nd onwards at Vishakhapatnam’s ACA-VDCA cricket stadium.