Former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed will be on cloud nine after making a successful return to the Test side after almost four years. Sarfaraz last played a Test match in January 2019, however, lost his place in the national side following the debacle of the ICC Cricket World Cup in England, four years ago. Sarfaraz has been part of the squad but didn’t feature in the line-up till Pakistan were forced to bring him back, with designated wicket-keeper Mohammad Rizwan enduring a lean patch in the longest format of the game.
Sarfaraz started in the line-up from the first New Zealand Test onwards and never looked back. Sarfaraz scored fifties in both innings of the first match, returning scores of 86 and 53 before finally breaking his 9-year long century-less streak in the second and final match of the series. Sarfaraz scored 78 runs in the first innings and played a decisive knock of 118 runs in the second to help Pakistan save the match and hence the series. Sarfaraz amassed 335 runs in four innings and ended up winning the player of the series award.
It was an emotional moment for Sarfaraz when he reached the three-figure mark as his wife was in tears, his teammates skipper Babar Azam, opener Imam-ul-Haq and the entire support staff gave him a standing ovation as they knew the importance of that knock. The video of Babar and Imam’s celebrations went viral and one of the users criticed Babar, using the image from that video alleging that he fake-praised the former captain after benching him since 2019.
The tweet naturally went viral but more than the tweet itself, an interesting activity on it caught the fans’ attention. Sarfaraz liked the tweet from that user and later after facing flak revoked his like on the said tweet.With this series, Pakistan’s journey in the ongoing World Test Championship (WTC) cycle came to an end and they ended 2022 with zero Test wins at home.
