Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has said that Sarfaraz Khan’s methods can’t be blamed for his dismissal in India’s first innings of the second Test against New Zealand as well. He also credited the visitors’ planning and execution for his dismissal. However, Sarfaraz scored 11 runs off 24 deliveries as India were bowled out for 156 on Friday, October 25.

During a discussion on Colors Cineplex, Chopra said, “It’s his method to score runs and eventually, we were praising the same method in the last Test match. So I won’t question that method, that you are searching runs from the start and want to play attacking cricket. However, there were two very important things here. Firstly, if you see this ball’s speed, it was 77 kmph. He was flighting the ball. He bowled so slow because he knew very well where Sarfaraz would score runs against spin. He doesn’t hit straight.”

In the same discussion, Aakash Chopra also shared that Sarfaraz Khan was tempted to hit straight over the top.

“The mid-off and mid-on fielders were kept up to tease him to go over the top, that if you have the ability, you can jump down the track and hit over them. Sarfaraz Khan doesn’t hit there at all. So he was given the temptation there. The entire midwicket area was also left empty because they knew he would play the sweep but since you were going to play the sweep off a slow ball, a fielder was there at short fine-leg, so that if he got a top edge, he would be caught there,” Chopra expressed.

“New Zealand got hit by Sarfaraz once but they came with proper planning the second time, knowing where he could score runs and where he could have difficulties. They executed the plans beautifully by bowling slow, that he could play the sweep if he was able to, or else he would have to hit straight. He tried to hit and got trapped,” Aakash Chopra concluded.