Sarfaraz broke the record jointly held by Maharashtra’s Abhijit Kale, who took 16 balls for his fifty against Baroda in 1995 and Baroda allrounder Atit Sheth, who also hit a 16-ball half-century against Chhattisgarh in 2021. Mumbai, however, lost the game having been 169 for 3 in the 18th over. Suryakumar Yadav’s wicket was followed by Shivam Dube’s and captain Shreyas Iyer’s as an unexpected collapse left them short of Punjab’s total by one run. They needed 16 to win with four wickets in hand but couldn’t manage it.
Chasing 217 at the Jaipuria Vidyalaya Ground, in Jaipur, Mumbai began swiftly with Musheer Khan and Angkrish Raghuvanshi adding 57 runs for the opening wicket in 8.2 overs. Sarfaraz replaced his brother in the middle and immediately took the spinners apart.
He first smashed the Punjab captain Abhishek Sharma for three sixes and three fours in an over and then went after the left-arm spin of Harpreet Brar as well, smoking him for 19 runs in five balls. Sarfaraz finally fell for 62 off just 20 balls, lbw by Mayank Markande, his innings laced with seven fours and five sixes.
According to available data, this is the fourth-fastest fifty in all List A cricket, the fastest being Sri Lanka’s Kaushalya Weeraratne – in 12 balls – in a domestic game in the 2005-06 season.
Sarfaraz is currently the highest run-scorer for Mumbai in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, with 303 runs in six innings at an average of 75.75 and a strike rate of 190.56. He hit 157 against Goa on December 31 and a half-century against Uttarakhand earlier in the tournament. Mumbai have already qualified for the knockout stages of the tournament.
Sarfaraz last played for India in a Test match against New Zealand in November 2024 but has been in stellar form recently. He was Mumbai’s second-highest run-scorer at the 2025-26 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with 329 runs in seven matches at 65.80 and a strike rate of 203.80. Sarfaraz was bought by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for his base price of INR 75 lakh at the IPL 2026 auction.
