Sarfaraz Khan does not feature in the India A squad for their two unofficial “Tests” against South Africa A.
No Sarfaraz in India A squad
India A will play two four-day unofficial “Tests” against South Africa A at Bengaluru. Starting on October 30 and November 6, these games are likely to be crucial when the selectors pick the squad for India’s home Tests against South Africa, from November 14 and November 22. When the squad for the India A games was announced, Sarfaraz did not feature in them.
From 56 first-class matches, Sarfaraz has 4,759 runs at 65.19 – the fifth-highest average in the history of the format with a 50-innings cut-off. His Test numbers – 371 runs at 37.10 – are decent, though not extraordinary. In his last series, against New Zealand, he had a 150 (his only Test hundred) but failed to cross 11 in his other six innings.
Then came two testing tours, of five Tests each, in Australia and England. He was part of the squad for the first tour but not the second. “Sarfaraz did play the three Test matches [against New Zealand] in India. I know he got a hundred in the first Test, didn’t get runs [after that] and missed out in Australia,” chair of selectors had Ajit Agarkar explained while naming the squad for the England tour.
Sarfaraz had made way for Karun Nair, who had clawed his way back through excellent performances in domestic cricket. To explain Nair’s inclusion, Agarkar had cited the batter’s stints in the County Championship as well as the importance of his experience in the era immediately after Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s retirement.
India dropped Nair but did not recall Sarfaraz when they hosted the West Indies for two Tests. Being left out of the India A games has as good as ruled Sarfaraz out of the South Africa Tests.
What went wrong for Sarfaraz?
While not part of the India squad for the England tour, Sarfaraz did play for India A against the England Lions in a “Test” in Canterbury, where he made 92. He got 42 and 32 in his only professional match since then, a Ranji Trophy outing against Jammu & Kashmir last week.
While these are not spectacular numbers, Sarfaraz has not exactly failed either. It is worth a mention that he also went on a strict regime and lost 17 kg in two months over this period.
The BCCI’s decision to leave him out might have been entirely due to cricketing reasons. However, Sarfaraz did get embroiled in a string of events on India’s 2024/25 tour of Australia.
On the eve of the final Test of that tour, Gambhir had spoken about leaks from the Indian dressing-room: “Indian cricket will be in safe hands till honest people stay in the dressing-room. The only thing that keeps you in the dressing room is performance. There were honest words and honesty is important.”
On the first day of that Test, on January 3, The Australian ran a report, where Bharat Sundaresan wrote about a “reserve in the Indian team” enquiring whether Rohit had mentioned him to Sundaresan. “Has Gauti-bhai (Gambhir) said anything about me to you? Nobody says anything to me in the team. Not the captain or the coach. I don’t know what’s happening.” Sundaresan did not name the cricketer.
Later that month, Gambhir attended a review meeting with the BCCI. Soon afterwards, News24 Sports ran a video report where they claimed that Gambhir had named Sarfaraz as the person responsible for the dressing-room leaks. However, there has been no subsequent revelation on the matter since then.
That Sarfaraz has not played for India since then may or may not be a coincidence.
