Sarfaraz Khan slams third fifty of debut Test series: Stats
India's rising batting sensation Sarfaraz Khan scored a fine fifty on Day 2 of the ongoing fifth and final Test against England in Dharamsala. He batted with great intent and ended up scoring 56 off just 60 balls, a knock laced with eight boundaries and a maximum. Playing his debut Test series, Sarfaraz now has three fifties in his first five innings.
A dominating show from Sarfaraz
Responding to England's first innings total of 218, India were well placed at 279/3 when Sarfaraz arrived to bat. He joined forces with debutant Devdutt Padikkal as the duo added to England's misery with a 97-run stand. While Sarfaraz was a bit watchful early on, he opened up later and scored runs for fun. He eventually fell to Shoaib Bashir.
Third 50-plus score of the series
As mentioned, this was his third half-century of the series as he recorded 62 and 68* in his debut game in Rajkot. He missed out in the Ranchi Test, managing 14 and 0. Nevertheless, he has bounced back with another fifty. The youngster has now raced to 200 Test runs, averaging 50. Moreover, his strike rate is around 80.
Over 4,000 FC runs for Sarfaraz
The 26-year-old Sarfaraz came into the series with 3,912 runs in FC cricket. He has now raced to 4,112 runs. Sarfaraz slammed his 14th FC fifty. He also owns 14 centuries with the best score of 301*. His average of 68-plus is only second to Vijay Merchant (71.64) among Indian batters with at least 2,000 FC runs.
How has the match proceeded?
Batting first, England started well and were going along fine at 175/3 before India triggered a collapse (218/10). Kuldeep Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin shared nine scalps. Zak Crawley made 79. In reply, the hosts have gone past 370 thanks to centuries from Shubman Gill (110) and Rohit Sharma (103). Besides Sarfaraz, Yashasvi Jaiswal also slammed a fine fifty (57).
