Covid-19 claims Pakistan cricketer Zafar Sarfraz

Former Pakistan first-class cricketer Zafar Sarfraz has died after testing positive for Covid-19, according to a report by ESPNCricinfo.

The 50-year old who made his debut back in 1988 had been on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Peshawar for the past three days.

Sarfraz, a left-hand middle-order batsman, made 616 runs from 15 first-class games for Peshawar. He also had 96 runs from six one-day games before retiring in 1994 and moving on to coaching both the senior and the Under-19 Peshawar teams in the mid-2000s.

A prominent figure in the region’s cricket, Zafar was the brother of Pakistan international Akhtar Sarfraz, who went on to play four ODIs between December 1997 and October 1998, scoring 66 runs in four innings. He died 10 months ago in same city after a battle with colon cancer.

Nearly 100 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan. Peshawar, a city in the north of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has 744 of the nearly 5500 active cases in the country. Sarfraz was the first professional cricketer to die as a result of the coronavirus in Pakistan, ESPNCricinfo reported.