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'I asked him 'why don't you practice much?'; He said...': Sarfaraz Khan reveals AB de Villiers' million-dollar praise
Sarfaraz Khan spent four seasons with the Royal Challengers Bangalore where he shared a dressing room with the likes of Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers.
Sarfaraz Khan is showing the true extent of his talent with the run spree that he is on in domestic cricket but it wasn't too long ago when he was considered a player whose potential has gone unfulfilled, despite his young age. Sarfaraz had spent four seasons with the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and such was his talent that he had been retained in 2018 ahead of the likes of Chris Gayle, KL Rahul and Yuzvendra Chahal.
Sarfaraz shared a dressing room at RCB with the likes of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers as well. The 25-year-old recalled a conversation he had with De Villiers with Aakash Chopra on JioCinema. "It would be better if we didn't talk about him. Rarely have I seen him practice. But I asked him once, why don't you practice much? So, he said that when I was of your age, I used to practice a lot, and I was not as talented as you are now, so just keep playing,” said Sarfaraz.
Sarfaraz has said that he was determined to change people's notion of him being a “white-ball player”. He has scored 556 runs in nine innings in the Ranji Trophy this season at an average of 92.66. He boasts a career average of 79.65 in first class cricket, having scored 3505 runs in 54 innings with 13 centuries and nine fifties.
“When I returned from the World Cup and played IPL for 1-2 years, some people said that Sarfaraz Khan is a white ball player who will not be able to play against the red ball, and that he is the only player who can bat for the last 4 overs with the white ball. But I knew that I could do it, and I have been working hard on it. I was waiting for an opportunity where I could get 4-5 matches to play continuously in the Ranji Trophy, so I'll show them who I am," Sarfaraz said.
"When that day came, I made a comeback for Mumbai, and my first century for Mumbai ended up going straight to the triple century. After that, I realised that things aren't as difficult as people make them out to be. I also had a dream from childhood of raising the bat and helmet in my hand with Mumbai's logo on my chest, so the taste for that thing is never going away and I will never let it go," he said.
