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Cricket doesn’t stop for Sarfaraz Khan and his younger brother Mumbai’s U-19 skipper Musheer Khan even in the rainy season. Their success in domestic cricket can be attributed to their ability to hit and bowl. But this doesn’t come easy as both the brothers spend hours honing their skills on a self-made indoor turf at their native village in Azamgarh, around 260 km from Lucknow.

With around 3700 runs, including 2530 runs in first-class cricket in domestic events already under his belt, the 24-year-old Sarfaraz along with Musheer, the left-hand all-rounder, who struck a superb double hundred on his U-25 debut for Mumbai against Manipur this March, didn’t waste time and headed home immediately after finishing his assignment with Mumbai side in Ranji Trophy final against champions Madhya Pradesh in the last week of June.

“We did not need to stay in Mumbai since the rainy season was about to start there. Within three days of arriving home, we all started training hard on our own turf without any break,” said their father Naushad Khan.

“Unlike many others, we don’t stop playing cricket, and I believe that only your diligent work keeps you ahead of others. I don’t believe in stopping training even for a day, and that’s why we play cricket, dream cricket and sleep cricket at our native place here,” said senior Khan.

“Coming home in the off-season is a tradition in our family, and even in my playing days, my father used to bring me home from Mumbai for off-season training. Now I am carrying on that tradition for my sons,” he added.

The Khan family owns an 1800-square-foot house in Chattarpur Dalel village in Azamgarh. The house comes with all the modern cricket facilities like flood-lit indoor turf, guest rooms, family rooms, a mini swimming pool, a gym as well as artificial turf on the terrace so that cricket doesn’t stop.

“I was looking for such a house-cum-cricket academy for my kids for some time, but it was only possible during the lockdown. I wanted a much larger space, but could manage this much piece of land only,” he said, adding, “Now, we have got another huge open land of around 2800 square feet adjacent to our house where we have plans to lay two turfs, each of red and black soils so that Musheer could do his bowling practice properly from the next off-season.”

Sarfaraz, who scored 400 plus runs, including two centuries in three Ranji Trophy matches this season, stayed tuned to the strenuous practice sessions on the home turf for almost 20 days before leaving for Gurgaon, where the fitness camp of his IPL side Delhi Capitals is on. And during his stay at home, he didn’t miss training even for a day.

“He (Sarfaraz) has a long way to go in his career. He needs to train more and more to become strong in the sport, as I believe. By batting more often, he learns and gains perfection in his batting,” said Naushad, who is instrumental in shaping the cricket careers of players like Mumbai’s spinner Abdullah Iqbal and once IPL hero Karmna Khan who both hail from Azamgarh too.

He, however, accepts that the trio of Sarfaraz and Musheer and him are now a self-made ‘Banzara Academy”, which keeps travelling from one part to the other part of the country to train on different pitches and also in different conditions.

“Yes, we keep on playing on different surfaces and also in different conditions in the off-season as it gives us a fair idea to perfect ourselves in different conditions. Right now, I am in Meerut along with Musheer to play matches. After finishing here, I and Musheer would be moving to Moradabad to play a few matches,” he said. “Next month Musheer will be leaving for Bengaluru to attend the India U-19 camp at the National Cricket Academy,” he added.

However, Naushad said the decision to shift Sarfaraz back to Mumbai after playing two seasons for Uttar Pradesh was his own. He said it was a completely different experience for him. “Sarfaraz’s stay in Uttar Pradesh was profitable as well as costly for him, as it set him back in his career for a while, but he learned to play quality cricket only in Uttar Pradesh. In fact, he didn’t get a proper opportunity in UP, but now I am not at all disappointed with that issue.”

Sharad Deep is a versatile sports journalist, who loves writing on cricket and Olympic sport. He has played cricket at the university level and has been writing for Hindustan Times since 1997. ...view detail

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