Watch: Sarfaraz Ahmed reveals his ‘state of heart’ after making Test comeback against New Zealand

Former Pakistan skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed has made his comeback in the ongoing Boxing Day Test against New Zealand. The last time he played a Test was way back in January 2019. At that time, he was the captain of the side across formats. The team held a number-one ranking in T20I cricket. Also, current skipper Babar Azam was finding his feet in Test cricket after establishing himself in ODIs and T20Is.

Meanwhile, a lot has changed in Pakistan cricket since then. Players such as Mohammad Hafeez, Azhar Ali, etc have taken called it a day on their international careers. Also, Ahmed, after losing his captaincy in July 2019, lost his place in the team across formats. Even though he played a few games in white-ball cricket across formats, playing his 50th Test looked like a distant dream for him.

However, thanks to Mohammad Rizwan’s poor form and interim selector, Shahid Afridi’s confidence in Sarfaraz, the latter finally played a Test match in his home ground in Karachi. Meanwhile, after the first day’s play, the 2017 Champions Trophy winner captain explained his state of heart when he faced his first deliveries. He revealed that his heartbeat was so fast that the heartrate meter might have exploded.

Watch the video here

https://twitter.com/Anubhavshahi48/status/1607683608717983747?s=20&t=TcFlYQXPH0KFfVUdeWGb2A

Sarfaraz Ahmed makes the most of the opportunity

The Karachi player’s 50th Test match didn’t start as the home side would have hoped. After winning the toss and electing to bat first, the World Number Six Test side lost four wickets for just 110 runs. At this point, it looked like the horrors from the England series would continue. However, the likes of Sarfaraz and Babar Azam stitched a partnership of 196 runs to dig the team out of the hole.

The former scored 87 runs and was caught at slips towards the end of the first day’s play. Pakistan ended up scoring 438 runs with Babar and Salman Ali Agha scoring a ton each. In reply, the Kiwis have amassed 103/0.