Ranji Trophy 2019-20 | Was dropped at RCB because of fitness issues, reveals Sarfaraz Khan

A promising start to his young career, at 16, the prodigy from Mumbai faced more lows than ups in the process till today. After a stint in Uttar Pradesh, Sarfaraz Khan came back to his base and scored a triple hundred last week against the former team. And the bright side is, he is still 22. After reaching the milestone he expressed his pride sharing his name with the big names from Mumbai cricket. 

“It’s a proud feeling to return and also join Mumbai’s triple-century club, alongside great players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Wasim Jaffer and Rohit Sharma,” Sarfaraz was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

The right-handed batsman, who has been retained by Kings XI Punjab for IPL 2020, had joined the IPL as a huge prospect but his career was soon clouded with concerns over his fitness. Eventually, he was dropped from the RCB brigade, led by captain Virat Kohli, and was asked to work on his fitness to get up to speed for the top level cricket. Ever since that, the Mumbaikar has been working on his fitness and has changed positively. For that, he did everything from training harder, working out and even change his diet. He also revealed how these endeavours helped him earn a new nickname.

“I was dropped at Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in 2016 because of my fitness. Virat Kohli told me straightaway while there were no doubts over my skills, my fitness was not letting me get to the next level. He was very honest with me about where I was,” he revealed.

“I knew that is when I had to get fitter. So I started working out, running, doing a lot of cardio. I gave up sweets and tried to improve my eating habits. At one point, all my team-mates used to call me ‘panda’ because I used to eat a lot. Now, they’ve started calling me ‘macho’. Actually, very few people know it’s my nickname now,” Sarfaraz added.