A 12-year-old Indian boy has scored 439 runs in the same school cricket tournament in Mumbai that was used as a launch pad for the career of current Indian superstar Sachin Tendulkar.
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, the Times of India reported.
It was in the same 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.
Khan says the only time he took his eye off the ball was when his coach Raju Pathak signalled from the pavilion on the next target he needed to achieve.
He says once he reached his triple century, word came in about Sachin Tendulkar's mark of 358 which he had to conquer.
Khan says the only time he's seen Tendulkar 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.
