After a furore over Sarfaraz Khan's snub from India A squad for the home series against South Africa A, Mumbai captain Shardul Thakur has shown his support for the middle-order batter. He mentioned that
the 28-year old batter doesn't need to play for India A, and can directly play an international game. Sarfaraz last played for India during home Test series against New Zealand late last year, however, he has since been left out of the Test team. He made his Test debut against England in the Rajkot Test of the 2023–24 season. His previous appearance came in the Mumbai Test against New Zealand, one of his six Test matches overall for India.
While speaking to the media, India all-rounder Shardul Thakur said, as per NDTV Sports, "Nowadays, for the India A side, they look at boys, who they want to prepare for international cricket. Sarfaraz doesn't need the India A game to play international cricket. If he gets back to scoring again, he can straight away go and play Test series also."
Meanwhile, BCCI has reportedly come up with its version on Sarfaraz Khan's omission from the India A series. It is understood that according to them since he just came back from an injury, he required some domestic cricket playing time before being considered for India A. Therefore, he has a few games to demonstrate that his desire to score runs was unaffected by the injury hiatus as India is still vying for a few positions in the batting order.
Shardul Thakur shows confidence on Sarfaraz Khan's comeback
Thakur is quite confident about Sarfaraz's comeback in the coming matches as Mumbai is looking forward to building the game stronger. "He is a senior pro and whenever we put him in there in the 22 yards, he is someone who always delivers in crunch situations," Thakur said. "He has big scores of 200-250s and those innings have come when the team was two or three down quite early in the innings. To play that kind of innings under pressure, you have to have something special in you," Mumbai captain further stated.
The 42-time Ranji champions will now play their maiden home match against Chhattisgarh at the BKC Ground in Mumbai. In other second-round Group D games, Jammu and Kashmir will try to recover from their loss when they play a resolute Rajasthan, who defeated Chhattisgarh in their season opener, at Srinagar's Sher-e-Kashmir Stadium.
