Former India player Aakash Chopra has said that Sarfaraz Khan may earn an IPL 2024 contract if the auction was a day after the Mumbai batter scored his third Test fifty. Notably, Sarfaraz continued his sublime form with the bat since making his debut in Dharamsala, scoring 56 off 60 balls in the fifth Test as well. However, despite his domestic form, he failed to get an IPL contract during the 2024 auction as he went unsold.

Speaking on JioCinema, Chopra said that he wasn’t personally surprised by Sarfaraz not finding a team in the auction. He said, “I am personally not that surprised, or I would say that I am as surprised as I am with the fact that Pat Cummins got 20.50 crore rupees. Recency bias is a very important thing. If the auction had been tomorrow, he would have got a contract.”

“However, the auction should be dependent on how you have played in the last five to seven years in that format and in that tournament. Sarfaraz had a contract since he was 18 years old. He has played for two or three franchises,” again said Chopra.

However, Aakash Chopra further added that Sarfaraz hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to do well in the IPL and feels people are talking about him now just because of his stunning performance in the England Test series. Notably, Sarfaraz has played 50 IPL matches so far and scored 585 runs with an average of 22.5. Also, he played for the Delhi Capitals in the IPL 2023 edition and managed to play only 53 runs from 4 matches.

“Let’s be honest, he hasn’t got those many opportunities. However, we weren’t surprised when no one picked him in the auction and that’s why there was no discussion as well at that time. Now we are definitely talking about him, that he plays this or that, but he is doing that here, just like Pat Cummins had won the World Cup,” concluded Aakash Chopra.