Sarfaraz is as incredible young man: Shane Watson

Shane Watson may have retired from international cricket, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t play the big shots. He slammed 3 sixes and picked up a couple of wickets as his new team, the Royal Challengers won by 45 runs. However, the 34-year old Aussie has been quick to point out the maturity shown by 18-year old Sarfaraz Khan. The latter ended the RCB innings with a blistering 31 off just 8 deliveries.

“He is an incredible young man and there is no doubt that he has worked extremely hard to get all kinds of shots right. The control over shots he has… never seen before for a young talent like him. It shows he has practised hell of a lot, and we saw him this tonight,” he told reporters at the post-match press conference.

Watson also added that he was pleased to watch the innings compiled by AB de Villiers. Watson also added that de Villiers’ innings seemed to be rather risk-free.

“What I saw is as good as the best batting I have ever seen. He didn’t look like taking the risk at all in his entire innings. One shot he played off the backfoot for a six is an incredible shot to play, and he does it with so much of ease is really a pleasure to watch. He executes his shots incredibly well,” he said.

“This I saw happening in the previous season when I was playing as a rival for Rajasthan Royals. So, why should one change the order when the top three are delivering. You need to take early wickets, otherwise, you are in deep trouble, and that’s what exactly happened tonight,” he said.

The 34-year old also highlighted that it was an off-day for Chris Gayle as the latter didn’t make the same impact as he is capable of.

“It is not going to be everyone’s day. Chris got out early, but we had depth in batting with likes of Kedar Jadhav, Sarfaraz, AB and Kohli in our side,” he said.

“More than anything else playing before your home crowd is a very nice feeling. We did not get to play that many matches in Jaipur – my previous home ground,” he said.

“Relations with Gayle has been very good so far. We had a couple of commercials as well which gave us a chance to know each other better after few run-ins in the past. Don’t know how it works when I am playing alongside him in one team. This is the beauty of cricket,” he said.

“Yes, it was a prize wicket because David has all the potential to score big runs. We remember him scoring 150 runs in T20. I am happy to have claimed his wicket, and once we saw his back, we knew we could squeeze the opponents,” he said.