Sarfaraz Khan joins Kohli, Tendulkar and Gavaskar in this elite list after his maiden hundred for team India

Sarfaraz Khan put his best foot forward for India in their second innings against New Zealand in the first Test match at Bengaluru. Sarfaraz (125, 154b) and Rishabh Pant (53, 56b) were batting at the time when rain stopped play and an early lunch was taken. The pair added 113 runs for the fourth wicket which is not out in 22 overs. Rishabh Pant going in to bat alongside Sarfaraz would have also eased a lot of tense nerves in the Indian camp after the latter missed the third day’s play due to a knee injury thanks to a ball he kept during the second day.

There was hardly any quarrel about the star of the first phase.

Making his fifth Test appearance, the lad from Mumbai, back from 70, showed great skill in dealing with cloudy weather and pace bowlers from New Zealand as India put 63 runs on the board before the first drinks interval.

Sarfaraz contributed a significant amount of the runs, and his late cuts against the Kiwis’ fast bowlers were something to savor.

He also made up for the first innings duck with this century. And that earned him the distinction of being in the very few Indian batters who scored a century after a duck dismissal in the same Test match.

List of Indian stars to score duck in first innings and a century in the second innings of the same game:

Madhav Apte – 0 and 163 (Vs West Indies, 1953)

Sunil Gavaskar – 0 and 118 (vs Australia, 1977)

Dilip Vengsarkar – 0 and 103 (vs England, 1979)

Mohammad Azharuddin – 0 and 109 (vs Pakistan, 1989)

Sachin Tendulkar – 0 and 136 (Vs Pakistan, 1999)

Shikhar Dhawan – 0 and 114 (Vs New Zealand, 2014)

Virat Kohli – 0 and 104 (vs Sri Lanka, 2017)

Shubman Gill – 0 and 119 (vs Bangladesh, 2024)

Sarfaraz Khan – 0 and 125* (vs New Zealand, 2024)