Sanjay Manjrekar heaped praise on Sarfaraz Khan, comparing him with legendary Pakistani batter Javed Miandad. Sarfaraz missed out in the first innings of the Bengaluru Test against New Zealand after Matt Henry, who completed 100 wickets, dismissed him for a three-ball duck.
But Sarfaraz made amends in the second innings. At Stumps on Day 3, he stayed not out on 70 off 78 balls with the help of seven fours and three sixes. He was also involved in a handy partnership of 136 runs with Virat Kohli, who made 70 runs before Glenn Phillips dismissed him at the fag end of the day’s play.
Manjrekar said that Sarfaraz’s innings reminded him of Miandad, who scored 8832 runs for Pakistan in 124 Tests with 23 hundreds and 43 fifties.
“He (Sarfaraz) reminds me of a Javed Miandad of the 1980s but this is a 2024 version of a Javed Miandad. Really impressed with the way he played. We know he plays spin well but I liked the way he played fast bowlers,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.
Manjrekar also praised Sarfaraz for using his brains and trying to preserve his wicket until the end of the day’s play.
“And towards the end of the day’s play when he was looking to play defensively and wanting bad light when there was actually bright light. I loved the way he was ducking to bouncers, just trying to play the day out so he has that game as well and that augurs well for India and Sarfaraz Khan for Australia because he has shown that element of batting as well,” Manjrekar added.
After conceding a huge lead of 356 runs in the first innings, Sarfaraz and Kohli made sure of bringing the deficit down to 125. On Day 4, Sarfaraz and India would want to get rid of the trail before thinking of setting a target to the Black Caps.
