12-year boy scores 439; breaks 46-year old record!

Zeecric Bureau

Remember the name: Sarfaraz Khan.

Just 12 years in age, Sarfaraz Khan entered the record books when he slammed 439 runs during a Harris Shield match on Monday evening.

Playing for Rizvi Springfield, Khan flayed Indian Education Society (Kandivli) bowling attack to all parts of the ground, hitting 56 boundaries and 12 sixes in his 421-ball stay.

It`s the highest score in the 112-year history of Harris Shield, breaking the 46-year-old record held by R Nagdev, who had scored 427 not out in 1963-64.

Khan, who resumed the day on 235 reveled that his father, Naushad Khan, who is a local coach, encouraged him to target batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar’s score of 327.

“My father was telling me I should try and better Tendulkar`s score,” he said. “I was already on 235, and as one of the boundaries at Cross Maidan is short, I felt it was possible," Sarfaraz says.

Hailed as a prodigy already by the local media, Khan’s growing up years at a small house in Kurla, were cricket oriented. Having a cricket coach as father meant Sarfaraz found himself tagging along to a fair share of selection trials. "Iqbalbhai (Iqbal Abdulla) and Kamranbhai (Kamran Khan) stay with me, so whenever they went for selection trials, my father took me along. Once I had gone for the Mumbai Indians` selections, where I saw Mohammad Ashraful and Sachin Tendulkar talking."

The early promise, hopefully, would deliver its potential. Afterall, Mumbai owes nation a successor to the Sunil Gavaskar-Sachin Tendulkar legacy.