Sarfaraz Khan ended a long wait in his inspiring cricket journey on Saturday as the Mumbai player slammed his maiden Test ton for Indian cricket team at a crucial juncture in the first Test against New Zealand in Bengaluru. Sarfaraz played a counter-attacking knock, sometimes with brazen disregard for the rival bowlers, as he scored the ton in just 110 balls. Courtesy his ton and Rishabh Pant's half-century, India are on course to give New Zealand a decent enough target in the fourth innings.
Former Indian cricket team star Sanjay Manjrekar had an interesting thing to say about Sarfaraz Khan's innings. "Love how Sarfaraz Khan is giving the finger to the ‘Mumbai school of batting' Finally, it's all about runs & boy he knows how to get those! #INDvNZ," Manjrekar wrote on X. Interestingly Manjrekar, just like Sachin Tendulkar, played cricket for Mumbai at the national level.
Earlier, Manjrekar had predicted a strong comeback by India despite being all out for 46 in the first innings.
"If I were NZ, I would be slightly worried with India's strong reply. This Indian team has a great knack of coming back. Only recently SA needed 30 off 30 balls in the WT20 finals, remember that comeback? #INDvNZ", Majrekar wrote on X on Friday.
Meanwhile, top-order batter Rachin Ravindra was relieved after New Zealand managed to bag the big wicket of Virat Kohli off the final ball of the third day, and hoped the bowlers will keep piling pressure on India on Saturday.
Kohli (70) and Sarfaraz Khan (70 not out) added 136 runs for the third wicket to take India to 231 for three at stumps in the opening Test.
But the former Indian skipper fell to Glenn Phillips, edging him to stumper Tom Blundell to bring some respite to the visitors.
"It's pretty hard to crystal-ball gaze into the future. It's a quality batting line-up on a wicket that's not doing too much, so it's important for us to hold our lines and lengths and do that for long periods. But I think Kohli's wicket at the end was very important," Ravindra told reporters during the post-day press meet.
"Obviously, he's a guy who has scored 9,000-plus Test runs, which is pretty mind-blowing, but for us it was a huge wicket. We know things happen quickly in this part of the world, so, hopefully, we can stick at it and get a few wickets in the morning," he added.
With PTI inputs