Twelve-year-old Sarfaraz Khan was batting on 235 when stumps were drawn in his Harris Shield match on Monday evening. He spent a sleepless night, wondering if he could go past the 346 runs Sachin Tendulkar had scored in Mumbai's inter-school cricket competition 21 years ago.

Sarfaraz's father, Naushad Khan, is a local coach who has trained players like Iqbal Abdulla and Rahil Shaikh � both members of the Mumbai Ranji team � as well as left-arm fast bowler Kamran Khan, who came into spotlight in the IPL's second season for the Rajasthan Royals. Many of them, at some point or the other, have stayed at Sarfaraz's place.

"My father was telling me I should try and better Tendulkar's score. I was already on 235, and as one of the boundaries at Cross Maidan is short, I felt it was possible," Sarfaraz says.

He did better than that. By the time the Rizvi Springfield batsman was done tormenting the Indian Education Society (Kandivli) bowling attack, he had 439 runs against his name. His innings came off just 421 deliveries and included 56 boundaries and 12 sixes. It's the highest score in the 112-year history of Harris Shield, breaking the 46-year-old record held by R Nagdev, who had scored 427 not out in 1963-64. Sarfaraz, incidentally, was dropped thrice � on 25, 253 and 302. He gave the fielders enough time to regret their errors.

The enormity of his achievement did not take long to sink, for word had spread around and a cluster of TV cameras and reporters had collected at the ground. For them, he managed to hide his exhaustion by summoning smile-on-demand.

Growing up in a small house in Kurla, Sarfaraz has been talking and hearing cricket ever since he first held an oversized bat. Having a cricket coach as father meant Sarfaraz found himself tagging along to a fair share of selection trials. "Iqbalbhai and Kamranbhai stay with me, so whenever they went for selection trials, my father took me along. Once I had gone for the Mumbai Indians' selections, where I saw Mohammad Ashraful and Sachin Tendulkar talking."

How close did he get? "I heard Ashraful asking Sachin about difficulties in getting the front foot forward in time," Sarfaraz says. "Sachin was instructing Ashraful to watch the bowler's arm till the last moment before moving his feet. I tried that later and it worked for me," says the boy who has clearly keeps his eyes and ears open.

Staying around older cricketers has other advantages as well. "Iqbalbhai always sets challenges � he asks me to score a century before every match and most times I win. This time, he told me to hit 300, I went on to score 400!"