Curious case of cricketer Sarfaraz Khan

The immensely talented cricketer Sarfaraz Khan’s absence from even the India A team has ignited social media debates and outrage, alleging bias over his non-selection. At 29 years of age, two 50s in his debut Test and another score of 150 in the six Tests he has played so far, it is a bit strange that he is not part of the Indian senior squad, let alone the India A side. When he made his first appearance for India against England last year, he was an unlikely sportsman in this age and time of fitness freaks, whose bodies are chiselled to sculpting perfection.

His plumpness has in no way interfered with his voracious appetite for scoring runs in the Ranji Trophy championship, where he is displaying batting skills of rare quality that enabled him to average a phenomenal 82.83 in first class cricket at one point of his career, leaving just Donald Bradman and Vijay Merchant ahead of him. In more than a decade of rubbing shoulders with the best in the country, he averages a phenomenal 65 as of now.

Yet, for some inexplicable reasons, he had to wait for 10 years before he was selected to play for India. As he unleashed a range of daring strokes on his debut, while hustling the opponents with his inventive shots and spirited perkiness, comparison with the game’s legend Javed Miandad didn’t seem out of place. He followed up this promising debut with a superbly crafted 150 against New Zealand in another display of audacious stroke play that pointed to a rich career ahead. It took just two more Tests and four innings in which he had scores of 11,9,0,1, that his world came crumbling down.

His batting order was being reshuffled despite having scored big in the first Test and an impression got created that he is not good enough in pressure situations. Subsequently, he was dropped from the playing XI, warmed the bench on India’s tour to Australia and was shown the door for the England series. He was given an opportunity to play for India A against England Lions before that epic series began, where he missed scoring a hundred by a mere eight runs. But the Indian Test team doors seem shut for him and he finds himself in the wilderness, with even the opportunity to showcase his prowess for the India A side being denied to him.

Even his worst critics may find it difficult to deny the unfairness of it all.

At 5 feet, 5 inches of height, he is no giant and his stout figure would invite accusations of his not being fit for the rigours of international cricket. Sarfaraz, within a year of his exile from the Indian team, is now 11-kg lighter from his original frame, unrecognisable from the man who played for India in 2024. It is obvious he has not given up yet, even if the Indian selectors are ignoring him.

The question now being raised is that is he a victim of bias, and as a few Opposition politicians, supported by many in the social media, pointed out, is his surname ‘Khan’ the reason for his omission? The outrage comes from both sides of the divide. Many of those who agree that he is not being treated fairly find it obnoxious that his religion is being dragged into this controversy. Muslim representation in Indian cricket so far has never been a contentious issue, even if from time to time a few players may have been treated unfairly.

India has a proud record of being led by a Muslim at the cusp of Independence in 1946 — Iftikhar Ali Khan — and for a decade or more from 1962, Iftikhar’s son, Tiger Pataudi, led India with dignity and distinction, a fact acknowledged across India even now.

Another Muslim, Mohd Azharuddin, led India for a decade. His batting genius got tarnished by match-fixing accusations, and what could have been an incredible legacy of rich batting skills of unmatchable aesthetics lies in shame and betrayal of human ethics.

In the 1960s, when Tiger Pataudi was leading India, the nation was making a brave attempt to forge an inclusive identity for itself. When Salim Durrani, an all-rounder of exceptional ability but zero discipline, told his captain during the 1962 tour of the West Indies that he was being singled out for being a Muslim by his Hindu teammates, Pataudi castigated him with these words (I have him on record): “Before anyone else throws you out of this team, we two Muslims (Pataudi and team manager Ghulam Ahmed) will kill you if you talk like this.”

Even in the beginning of 2000, when Azharuddin tried to project himself as a victim of a larger conspiracy against minorities in match-fixing revelations, a majority of Indians, cutting across religious lines, scoffed at him. The times may have been changing, but it was still a country where an individual’s faith was not on public trial.

Sarfaraz today may be a victim of whimsical selection policies, where individual likes and dislikes can play havoc with one’s judgment of a player’s talent. There’s Karun Nair, too. Despite loads of runs and even a triple hundred in Tests, he is an example of how blatantly unfair the world can be.

The tragedy of India today is that we live in times where promoting hatred is not seen as evil. The right wing thrives on instigating a divisive agenda which creates fear and insecurity among the minorities. The cricket board is controlled by the ruling party members and if they don’t want to be accused of bias, they should explain the logic behind his omission.

It will be a sad commentary on us if a sportsperson gets sacrificed on the altar of suspicion, bias, insinuations and political slugfests.

— The writer is the author of ‘Not Quite Cricket’ and ‘Not Just Cricket’