Mumbai batter Sarfaraz Khan on Monday (January 29) was added to the Indian squad for the second Test of the five-match series against England, slated to get underway on February 2 in Visakhapatnam.
Sarfaraz received a sudden call-up along with Washington Sundar and Saurabh Kumar after Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul were ruled out of the second Test due to hamstring and quadriceps injuries, respectively.
Questions were asked about Sarfaraz’s repeated omission from the Test side despite his unparalleled consistency in first-class cricket. However, the selectors couldn’t ignore the 26-year-old after his recent scores of 4, 55 and 161 in the first two unofficial Tests against England Lions.
With three days remaining for the second Test, former cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra has backed Sarfaraz to replace the injured Rahul in India’s playing XI.
“Sarfaraz Khan and Rajat Patidar are available with this team. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Virat Kohli are still not there. They will have to play either Rajat Patidar or Sarfaraz. You can go towards Sarfaraz because he can play in an unorthodox fashion and is a very good player of spin,” said Chopra while speaking on his YouTube channel.
Sarfaraz Khan has been a prolific run-getter in first-class cricket over the years, amassing 3,912 runs from 45 matches at an average of 69.85 with 14 hundreds and 11 half-centuries.
Commenting on KL Rahul, Chopra said injuries have been the biggest problem in his career, citing that the former looked assured in both the innings against England in Hyderabad.
Rahul returned with scores of 86 and 22 across the two innings as India succumbed to a 28-run defeat in the opening Test.
“This has been the biggest problem in KL Rahul's career. Injuries or illnesses have come at the wrong time and they have come many a time. The way he played in the first innings, and to be fair, he was batting assuredly in the second innings as well. There are very few people in our team who play the sweep. Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul play the sweep, and KL Rahul will now not be there in this game,” Chopra added.
India’s revised squad for second Test: Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Akshar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Avesh Khan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Washington Sundar, Saurabh Kumar
