Sarfaraz Khan has been the star so far in the ongoing Irani Cup match between Mumbai and the Rest of India. After coming in to bat at 139/4, he smashed a double-century becoming the 11th batter to do so. He remained unbeaten on 222 as Mumbai got bowled out for 537 runs in their first innings on the third day.
Sarfaraz's 222 is the fifth-highest individual score in the history of the Irani Cup (formerly Irani Trophy) with Wasim Jaffer leading this list having played a marathon knock of 286 runs for Vidarbha in 2018. Jaffer had faced a staggering 431 deliveries smashing 34 fours and a six during his outing in Nagpur.
Coming back to Sarfaraz Khan, he broke Yuvraj Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ravi Shastri's record in this aspect. These three players have also scored double-hundreds in Irani Cup before with Yuvraj smashing 204* back in 2010 while Jaiswal amassed 213 runs last year in Gwalior against Madhya Pradesh. As for Shastri, his 217-run knock came in 1990 against Bengal.
Highest individual scores in Irani Cup
| Players | Team | Runs |
| Wasim Jaffer | Vidarbha | 286 |
| Murali Vijay | Rest of India | 266 |
| Pravin Amre | Rest of India | 246 |
| Surinder Amarnath | Delhi | 235* |
| Sarfaraz Khan | Mumbai | 222* |
| Ravi Shastri | Rest of India | 217 |
| Yashasvi Jaiswal | Rest of India | 213 |
| Parthasarthi Sharma | Rest of India | 206 |
| Yuvraj Singh | Rest of India | 204* |
| Wriddhiman Saha | Rest of India | 203* |
| Gundappa Vishwanath | Karnataka | 200* |
As far as the match is concerned, Mumbai are in a strong position after being invited to bat first. They were in trouble early at 37/3 in the first hour of the opening day but skipper Ajinkya Rahane (97) and Shreyas Iyer (57) rebuilt the innings. But Sarfaraz provided the real impetus with a knock filled with intent as he smashed his first double-century in the Irani Cup. He received decent support from lower-order batters Tanush Kotian (64) and Shardul Thakur (36). Mukesh Kumar picked up a five-wicket haul for the Rest of India while Yash Dayal and Prasidh Krishna picked up two scalps each.
