Sarfaraz Ahmed shares video of his 3-year-old son playing sublime drives with a straight bat

Former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed has seen it all in the past 12-18 months. From being the poster-boy and the leader of the Pakistan team across all the three formats of the game to being ousted and subsequently dumped– both as a captain and as a wicket-keeper– from all the national set-up, life has indeed come a full circle for the wicketkeeper-batsman.

The former Champions Trophy-winning captain and the leader under which Pakistan rose to the N0.1 ranking in T20I cricket, Sarfaraz was stripped of the captaincy duties and was also dumped from the squad following Pakistan’s slump in form that saw them lose Test series in South Africa, ODI series against the rainbow nation (3-2), Australia (5-0) and England (0-4) followed by a chastening loss to India in the World Cup.

The tipping point was reached when a second-string Sri Lankan team proceeded to whitewash them in the T20I series on home soil. Since then Sarfaraz has found himself on the sidelines. But, on Monday, a heartwarming video of the former captain playing with his son went viral on social media.

In the video, Sarfaraz can be seen bowling to his three-year-old son Abdullah, who gave a good account of his technique by presenting the full face of the bat and by playing straight.

Sarfaraz Ahmed is yet to play an international for Pakistan since November

Recently, Pakistan played a three-match T20I series against Bangladesh where Sarfaraz was once ignored from the set-up with the selectors persisting with the underperforming Mohammad Rizwan. When chief selector cum head coach Misbah-ul-Haq was asked about the former captain’s International future, he said that Sarfaraz had made great improvements as far as his fitness is concerned.

However, Misbah asserted that the message to Sarfaraz is pretty clear and if he wants to make a comeback, he needs to score runs in the Pakistan Super League. 

“Sarfaraz Ahmed has made some terrific improvements in fitness and is one of the fittest at the moment. It’s straight forward for him with PSL coming up, he was dropped due to form. If he performs, he has a strong case to make a comeback,” Misbah said.

With Mohammad Rizwan having not yet nailed down his spot, Sarfaraz could pave his way into the team for the T20 World Cup in Australia and a good PSL might go a long way in him reclaiming his spot.

Here’s the full video:

Birthday boy Abdullah Sarfraz playing with straight bat ⁦@SarfarazA_54⁩ pic.twitter.com/VLLizbWUwb

— Abdul Majid Bhatti (@bhattimajid) February 1, 2020