Date:07/11/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/11/07/stories/2009110760561700.htm

Sport - Cricket

Twelve-year-old sets a new batting record

— Photo: PTI

PRODIGY: Sarfaraz Khan’s heroics with the bat ensured his name in the records books.

Mumbai: Sarfaraz Khan, the 12-year-old cricket prodigy, set a new cricket record when he slammed an unbeaten 439 in the Harris Shield inter-school tournament.

Ill at ease with his overnight celebrity status, Sarfaraz said he had in fact fainted after giving a series of interviews on Wednesday. He scored a mammoth 439 off 421 balls during a 456-minute vigil against a hapless Indian Education Society Secondary School.

His knock, containing 56 fours and 12 sixes, is the highest in the tournament beating the earlier record of 427 set by S. Jadhav in 1963-64.

In the process, Sarfaraz also went past his idol Sachin Tendulkar’s 346 not out which the master batsman had scored for his school Shardashram Vidya Mandir when he, along with Vinod Kambli, added a record 664 runs for the third wicket in February 1988.

Sarfaraz now wants to meet Tendulkar in person to achieve his long-standing dream.

“Sachin is my idol and I consider him as my ‘Guru’, but Please don’t compare me with him,” he said.

“Even if I achieve one per cent of what he has achieved, I would be blessed. Meeting him is my dream, please write this,” he insisted. Sarfaraz said he had in fact fainted after giving series of interviews on Wednesday. “It feels great to be chased by the media but they tend to go a bit overboard,” he complained.

“I fainted after completing my media assignments at 11 p.m. last night. More than the time I spent at the crease, it has been the media interactions that has tired me out,” he said. — PTI