Mumbai’s in-form batter Sarfaraz Khan finally broke his silence on Suryakumar Yadav’s selection over him for the first two Tests of the upcoming four-match Test series between India and Australia, which is set to start from February 9 in Nagpur.
The right-hander has been performing exceptionally for the past three seasons in the first class, but despite this, the Indian selectors are continuously overlooking him for the national selection.
On the other hand, Suryakumar got the nod ahead of Sarfaraz, given his recent performance for Team India, and the young batter said it was just his broken heart after not finding his name in India’s Test squad for Australia's tests.
Reacting to Suryakumar’s selection to Test squad, Sarfaraz said that his Mumbai teammate’s selection is inspirational and his experience of playing T20Is and Ranji Trophy played a role in his selection.
Sarfaraz Khan told the journalist Vimal Kumar: “Obviously it is [on his selection being inspirational]. Suryakumar is a good friend of mine. And we spend a lot of time together when we are in the team together. I get to learn a lot of things from him. He had to wait for a long time but the way he has been playing, he has taken his experience from Ranji and T20Is together and moved forward, so that makes things easy.”
Sarfaraz stressed that he is not thinking much about his non-selection and that his main focus is to score runs in all three formats, and the India selection will take care of itself.
He signed off by saying, “Mera season ke time pe yahi mindset rehta hai ki main jo bhi match khel raha hun, main us mein runs karun, chahe voh [Syed] Mushtaq Ali ho, chahe Vijay Hazare, jo accha performance hote hue aa raha hai, aur Ranji Trophy mein bhi. Jo mere haath mein hai, main uspe focus kar raha hun, jo cheez mere haath mein nahi hai uske baare mein soch ke fayda nahi hai.
(My mindset before every match is to score runs, whether that is in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Vijay Hazare or Ranji Trophy. Whatever I have in my control I am focussing on that [scoring runs] and not thinking about what is uncontrollable [selection].”
