Locked in village, Sarfaraz keeps knocking

As fate would have it, the father-son duo find themselves spending lockdown time, confined in Chhatarpur village, Sarfaraz’s maternal home, 17 kms from Azamgarh in UP.

Ask a professional sportsman, how desperately they strive to stay ‘in form’. Mumbai’s Sarfaraz Khan was in the form of his life - 928 runs in the recently concluded Ranji trophy season, with a triple and double hundred by his name

Sarfaraz is locked in his village (HT Photo)

In a normal world, IPL 13 would have been underway, big things expected of Sarfaraz, after passing the red-ball test with flying colours. His franchise Kings XI Punjab would have been past their opening encounter in Delhi, father coach Naushad Khan would have been on the phone, mental conditioning his son for the next match.

With humanity facing unprecedented crisis due to coronavirus pandemic, sporting continuance takes a backseat.

As fate would have it, the father-son duo find themselves spending lockdown time, confined in Chhatarpur village, Sarfaraz’s maternal home, 17 kms from Azamgarh in UP. Sarfaraz was playing a club match in Bhopal, when news of corona virus’s spread in India began to trickle in.

“Abbu called me and informed, how the Irani trophy had been cancelled and IPL suspended. He drove to Bhopal, to pick me up and we left for UP. He did not want me to travel by air, with the virus threat looming. Soon the nationwide lockdown was imposed, and we have stayed put over here,” he said.

Chhatarpur is a typical Indian village. The extended family has a field and cows to protect, but everyone has been confined to stay indoors. With Sarfaraz in peak form, trust Naushad to device some home-bred practice methods to stay in groove. The terrace of their village becomes the cricket pitch, the cemented surfaced is watered, and plastic and soft balls are at play. Sarfaraz’s big batting blade gets a work-out, which he would otherwise have missed.

“We have a three-hour training session in the morning. After having my batting stint against the swinging ball, I bat against Musher’s spin (younger brother, an age group Mumbai cricketer). Then there is some fitness work-out to do, that our Mumbai ranji trainer has given,” says Sarfaraz.

Evenings mean more cricket, fielding and agility sessions, followed by video-analysis. There is no chill time. “With Abbu around, there is little room to relax,” Sarfaraz jokes.

Until the lockdown is lifted, and there are signs of life returning anywhere close to normalcy, the Mumbai batting star shall continue to find ways of staying in shape. “It’s funny. Generally, I come here once in two-three years, but can’t stay here even for a week, with some or the other match to play. Even when I would play for UP, if there was a break, I would go back to Mumbai. And now we are going to be here for how long, nobody knows.”

Naushad, being a master of home-bred coaching techniques has put together a demo for the common man, showcasing how to practice with limited means in lockdown – bouncing a ball off a simple bed to the batsman, with a hanging bedsheet serving as a net, to keep the ball in play. Sarfaraz has posted it on Instagram, and the video has gone viral. Until the real action begins, Sarfaraz will have mastered many such quirky methods of putting bat on ball.