As per the report, the BCCI is also concerned with keeping the Mumbai-based batsman Sarfaraz Khan fit for future Test matches for the national team as it is likely to allow him to feature in the second Test against Bangladesh. This is to help him feature for the current Ranji Trophy champions’ upcoming Irani Cup tie against Rest of India at Lucknow.
For the first Test match against the East Bengal team held in Chennai which had her Indian team wins by 280 at the third day of this week, he was on the team bench but didn’t managed to play in the 11. The second match of the test series will be played from September 27 to October 1, at Green Park, Kanpur while Irani Cup will be overseas from 1-5 October at Lucknow from the October 1, 2018.
“India’s chief selector Ajit Agarkar is hopeful that barring any last-minute injuries in the nets or fitness issues to any of the main batsmen in Team India, Sarfaraz should be released from the main squad to enable him to be able to participate in the Irani Cup. This can only be opponents if a better singer is needed. In any case, it takes just about an hour to reach Lucknow from Kanpur, so Sarfaraz can leave for lucknow even much after the kanpur test has began,” the source said. The reasons for this state of affairs will come into focus on Tuesday, when Mumbai announce their squad for the Irani Cup.
As Sarfaraz, who has scored 4183 runs in 50 First-Class matches at a remarkable average of 66.39, with 14 hundreds and 14 fifties, is certain to be a valuable addition in the batting lineup for Mumbai, their bowling attack will be heavily affected as pacer Tushar Deshpande will be absent from the engagement as he is recovering from post-surgery treatment on his knee and ankle injuries. “He is not expected to be available for the next couple of months. He will miss the initial rounds of the Ranji Trophy too. The earliest he may return is for the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy in November,” a source said.
In other interesting news, Musheer Khan, an equally talented young cricketer who had an unbeaten knock of 181 batting at number 3 on his debut in Duleep Trophy earlier this month, is likely to start for Mumbai with Prithvi Shaw as the team didn’t have an opener in the previous season as well as in this season after Bhupen Lalwani moved to Chhatisgarh. He has now become a regular opener for Russel’s DY Patil team in the local tournaments of Mumbai.
