Sarfaraz Khan misses out on RajatPatidar's debut for India in the Vizag Test
The batter of Madhya Pradesh and Royal Challengers Bangalore, RajatPatidar, is making his Test debut for India in the second Test against England at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium on Friday, February 2.
Former fast bowler of team India Zaheer Khan presented Patidar with his debut Test cap and shared a few words of encouragement with him.
Patidar comes into the XI on the back of two centuries that he scored against the England Lions in a tour match and the 1st Unofficial Test. He scored 111 in the tour game and backed it up with 151 in the first unofficial test. The right-handed batter has accumulated 4000 runs in the 55 first-class games that he has played in his career thus far.
The 30-year-old batter pipped Sarfaraz Khan to make it to the playing XI. While the average of Patidar is 45.97 in the first-class arena, Sarfaraz has an average of a whopping 69.85 in the same circuit and has been scoring runs with unparalleled consistency lately. Sarfaraz has played 45 first-class games and aggregated 3912 runs in his young career.
Notably, Patidar has big boots to fill on debut as he comes in place of KL Rahul. Rahul scored 86 runs in the first innings of the Hyderabad Test and was ruled out of the 2nd Test after he complained of right quadriceps pain. Patidar would like to make the most of the opportunity and give the team management some headaches once Rahul regains his fitness and is available to play again.