Sarfaraz Khan's 162 puts Mumbai in command v Tamil Nadu

Mumbai’s Sarfaraz Khan celebrates his ton v Tamil Nadu yesterday. Pic/Ashish Raje

Having grown up playing cricket in the city's maidans, Sarfaraz Khan's appetite for daddy hundreds has never been in doubt. He put forth another testament of that trait with an incredible 162 that propelled Mumbai to secure a mammoth first innings lead of 337 runs against Tamil Nadu on the second day of their Elite Group ‘B' Ranji Trophy encounter at the Brabourne Stadium on Wednesday.

The century, Sarfaraz's 12th in his 50 first-class innings, has raised further hopes of the 25-year-old receiving a national call-up soon. However, the middle-order batsman, driven by the counsel of his father Naushad, has channelised his focus on scoring as many runs as possible.

"I will play for India whenever it is written in my fate. The only thing in my hand is to perform well regularly. I will keep doing that," Sarfaraz said in a media interaction on Wednesday. He added, "My family had expected me to get picked in the Test squad for the Bangladesh tour. Abbu [father] reiterates that I need to focus only on my performances."

The relentless and khadoos batting characteristic of the Mumbai team reflected in Sarfaraz's words as he opened up on putting a price on his wicket. "We crave for runs when we aren't scoring them. But, we don't value them when we are in good form - thus throwing away our wicket after getting to a century. I like to score big hundreds and I also have the habit of doing that. So, I am trying to score big runs and accordingly develop my patience," he explained.

Mumbai's tail tested the Tamil Nadu bowling unit as Tanush Kotian and Mohit Avasthi scored 71 and 69 runs respectively to help them get a strong hold over the proceedings after being reduced to 183-6 on Tuesday.

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Sarfaraz said that it was crucial for them to bide their time early on as the pitch became easier to bat on as the game progressed. "I had taken time to get my eye in on the first day. The bowlers were planning to trap me with bouncers. I decided that I will not get out fishing outside the off stump. I knew that runs would come my way easily if I left the deliveries well early on," he said.

Brief scores
Tamil Nadu 144 & 62-1 (N Jagadeesan 27 v Mumbai 481 (Sarfaraz Khan 162, T Kotian 71, M Avasthi 69; A Crist 3-69, H Trilok Nag 3-110)