Thursday, November 05, 2009 NEW DELHI: A 12-year-old has scored 439 runs in a school cricket tournament in Mumbai that was used as a launch pad for the career of current Indian superstar Sachin Tendulkar, local media reported on Thursday.Sarfaraz Khan faced 421 balls and hit 12 sixes and 56 boundaries for his Springfield Rizvi school against a hapless Indian Education Society in a three-day Harris Shield match on Wednesday, a local newspaper reported.It was in this tournament in 1988 when Tendulkar, then a prodigal 15-year-old, made 329 during a 664-run partnership with childhood friend Vinod Kambli, who also went on to play international cricket.Tendulkar made his Test debut a year later and became the most successful batsman in history with a world record 12,773 runs and 42 hundreds in Tests and 16,993 runs and 44 centuries in one-dayers.As television cameras and reporters surrounded the young Khan after his mammoth knock, he joked that it was easier scoring 400 than posing for the media."I swear I will never hit another 400 in my life," the newspaper quoted Khan as saying. "Slogging on the field is way easier than posing."The only time Khan took his eye off the ball was when his coach Raju Pathak signalled from the pavilion on the next target he needed to achieve, the paper said."I am a complete target person," said a confident Khan. "You tell me you want this and I'll give it to you."Once I touched my triple century, word came in about Sachin Tendulkar's mark of 358. That conquered, I managed 400. I was thrilled to bits."Khan said the only time he had seen Tendulkar from up close was during the Indian Premier League last year when the master was giving batting tips to Mohammad Ashraful, a former captain of Bangladesh."I heard him tell Ashraful to watch the ball till the last moment before it left the bowler's hand, so that he gets more time to adjust his shot," said Khan."I have followed that advice and it has got me a lot of runs."
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
Comments