Former Pakistan first-class cricketer Zafar Sarfaraz has passed away in Peshawar, aged 50, after losing battle against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) disease on Monday.

Sarfaraz played 15 first-class and six List-A matches over the course of his domestic career, between 1988 and 1995.

He was on a ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital over the past three days.  

He was the brother of Pakistan’s former cricketer Akhtar Sarfraz, who had passed away 10 months ago after suffering from colon cancer.

ALSO READ: I underestimated Babar Azam's ability: Dale Steyn

The novel coronavirus emerged in the central China city of Wuhan towards the end of last year and proliferated to almost the whole world within a couple of months. It’s not the virulence or fatality, but the infectivity of the new virus – also known as SARS-CoV-2 – that has set off a global frenzy.

The COVID-19 respiratory illness caused by this mysterious contagion has so far infected more than 1.9 million people in 202 countries and territories of the world – more than 118,000 of them have died and counting.  

Pakistan’s tally of COVID-19 patients has reached 5,782 with 2,826 cases in Punjab, 1,518 in Sindh, 800 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 231 in Balochistan, 233 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 131 in Islamabad, and 43 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.