20-years old Sarfraz Khan recently revealed that he didn’t think to be retained by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for IPL 2018. Sarfraz is famously known as one of the future talents for Indian cricket.
Making the debut in IPL in the 2015 season for RCB, Sarfraz Khan has shown some good performances in the IPL. However, he missed the IPL 2017 due to an injury. But now he is fit and ready to play under Virat Kohli’s captaincy.
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Among the three players, who were retained by RCB for the IPL 2018, Sarfraz was one of them. However, he didn’t expect that. Talking about his retention for IPL 2018, Sarfraz spoke out, “I didn’t think I was going to be retained. But when I got a call from them, I obviously said yes. Playing under Virat (Kohli) bhai is something else.”
Sarfraz recalled his debutant IPL season. At the age of just 17, Sarfraz made an IPL debut (in IPL 2015). He claimed that he was not nervous at that time. He quoted, “I wasn’t nervous playing in the IPL at 17. It helped that my father was a cricket coach himself, and had nurtured a couple of IPL players in Kamran Khan and Iqbal Abdullah. So from a young age, I’d been playing IPL bowlers. And at RCB nobody tries to change your game or your technique.”
In the IPL 2016, Sarfraz had played only 5 matches. Speaking about that, he said, “I was dropped because of my misfields and my fitness.”
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Since that, Sarfraz worked hard with his fitness as he also controlled his diet. He said, “I have more control over sweets now. I eat rice only in the day, and not for dinner. After 7pm, I don’t eat anything.”
He spoke out more on it by saying, “It used to be difficult two years ago, when this issue first came up. I was very young then and at that age, you don’t know everything. If you were in my place, the same thing would have happened with you. There will come more things in life that I will have to learn. I have concentrated mostly on cricket in my life. I have done very little gym-work. I used to think only about cricket as a kid; I wouldn’t pay much attention to academics either. Because I only wanted to play cricket and fulfil my father’s dream. But as I’ve started playing at higher levels, I’ve learnt that fitness-work is important too.”
Sarfraz admires Virat Kohli for his dedication level. Speaking about his RCB captain, Sarfraz said, “Virat bhai tho alag hee level ke hain (Virat Bhai is different level). His time-table is completely different from that of us normal players – his gym-work, his diet, his batting, everything. Virat bhai has so many commitments: so many ads to shoot, so much to sign. On top of that, the tension of captaining the side, picking the team. But there is never a dip in his performance. So how strong must he be mentally?”
When Sarfraz came to know about his retention in RCB for this season, he didn’t think much. Talking about that, Sarfraz said, “Everyone has something expected of him by someone. Virat bhai is under way more pressure than me. The more you think, the greater the tension. So I choose not to think.”
