Indian captain Rohit Sharma, who will not captain Mumbai Indians for the first time in the IPL since the 2013 season, appreciated Sarfaraz Khan’s awareness of the game in the fifth Test. While speaking in a recent interview, Rohit also stated that he loved playing with the young players in the team like Sarfaraz himself, Dhruv Jurel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
In that interview, Rohit Sharma spoke on a variety of topics including Team India’s 4-1 win in the five-match Test series against England and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s successive double hundreds. There, he also shed light on Ravichandran Ashwin’s completion of 500 Test wickets and earning his 100th Test cap. Rohit also had words of gratitude for middle-order batsman Sarfaraz Khan for his brilliant and “spot-on” awareness of the game while playing in the first innings of the fifth Test against England in Dharamshala.
Rohit Sharma says Sarfaraz Khan predicted Ollie Pope’s breakthrough from the crease
Rohit Sharma was extremely satisfied and happy with the way Sarfaraz Khan predicted England’s No. 3 batsman Ollie Pope to advance from the crease. That prediction eventually led to the batsman’s removal from the crease through an out, successfully carried out by wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel, who, like Sarfaraz, was playing his first Test series for the Indian team.
Rohit explained that he had asked Sarfaraz Khan to get into the short-legged position from where the latter predicted Pope would come out in the next dance. And to everyone’s surprise, the Englishman advanced and Jurel, with his clever glove work, did nothing wrong to remove the bails and send Ollie Pope packing once again for a low score.
The Indian captain then praised all the youngsters who shone in the Anthony De Mello Trophy Test series, stating that he had a lot of fun playing with all of them. Rohit also hoped to play cricket with them for a long time as they are a special group of people.
“That particular stumble (in the fifth test) was just brilliant. Sarfaraz Khan was the one who predicted that, I asked him to be there in the short leg and he said that he (Pope) will leave the area now and asked Jurel to be ready for the attack. And on the next ball, he moved forward, got stumped and walked away. Bright. I had a lot of fun playing with these guys and I hope we play a lot of Cricket together.” – said Rohit Sharma via the Team RO podcast.
Sarfaraz Khan still without a team in IPL 2024
While most of his national teammates will be busy playing the IPL 2024 edition starting March 22, Sarfaraz Khan may simply be keeping an eye on them as he does not have a contract in hand. Despite making his senior Test debut in the best possible way against England in the last 3 Tests in Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamshala, Sarfaraz will not be in this year’s IPL.
Last year, he was with the Delhi Capitals but the franchise released him ahead of the mini-auction for the 2024 edition. The only way he can play in the richest T20 league is by joining a particular team as a replacement in in case a player is injured.