Indian batter Sarfaraz Khan had a memorable debut in the international arena during the third Test against England, becoming the only fourth Indian to score twin half-centuries on Test debut.
In the match, Sarfaraz played a highly-attacking game, taking the spinners to attack.
In the first innings, he scored 62 in 66 balls, with nine fours and a six. In the second innings, he scored an unbeaten 68 off 72 balls, with six fours and three sixes.
The first Indian to score a twin fifty on Test debut was Dilawar Hussain, who scored 59 and 57 against England in 1934 at Kolkata.
Later, legendary Sunil Gavaskar (65 and 67n.o against West Indies at Port of Spain in 1971) and Shreyas Iyer (105 and 65 against New Zealand in Nagpur back in 2021) did the feat.
In the second innings, he put on a partnership of 172 runs for the fifth wicket with fellow Mumbai batter Yashasvi Jaiswal. Both the youngsters took England spinners to the cleaners in the 158 balls they played together.
Their partnership run-rate was 6.53, the new record for the highest run-rate in any 150-plus run partnership for India, outdoing Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay's run rate of 5.76 in their 168-run partnership against Afghanistan back in 2018.
Sarfaraz in the first innings, had smashed the second-fastest half-century on Test debut by an Indian in just 48 balls. The fastest fifty by an India player was by Yuvraj of Patiala against England in 1934.
Chasing 557, England was bundled out for just 122 runs in 39.4, losing the match by 434 runs.
Ravindra Jadeja took 5/41, while Kuldeep Yadav took two wickets. Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah took a wicket each. India lead the five-match series 2-1.
