Former Pakistan cricketer Zafar Sarfaraz dies after testing COVID-19 positive 

Zafar played 15 first-class games for Peshawar in Pakistan's domestic scene.

Cricket has seen first death because of COVID-19 | TwitterFormer Pakistan first-class cricketer Zafar Sarfaraz passed away after being tested positive of the Coronavirus, becoming the first professional cricketer to succumb to the deadly outbreak. 

According to a report in ESPNcricinfo, the 50-year-old had been on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Peshawar for the last three days. 

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The left-hand middle-order batsman scored 616 runs from 15 first-class games for Peshawar, also making 96 runs from six List A matches before retiring in 1994. 

Zafar later moved on to coaching both the senior and the Under-19 Peshawar teams in the mid-2000s. 

He was brother to former Pakistan international cricketer Akhtar Sarfraz. Akhtar represented the country in four ODIs between December 1997 and October 1998. He passed away last year after battling colon cancer. 

Coronavirus has claimed almost 100 lives in Pakistan, with Peshawar alone seeing 744 of the nearly 5500 active cases in the country. 

(Inputs from ESPNcricinfo)

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 14 Apr, 2020

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