Team India is locking horns with South Africa in the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup 2022 at the Optus Stadium in Perth. The men in blue were reeling at 47/4 after 8 overs, but the start went from bad to worse as Hardik Pandya was dismissed by Lungi Ngidi thanks to a blistering catch by fast bowler Kagiso Rabada.
Earlier in the game, the Indian skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bat first. Both the teams made one change in their playing XI for India, Deepak Hooda replaced Axar Patel and for the Proteas, Tabraiz Shamsi made way for Lungi Ngidi.
India witnessed a poor start as they lost both their openers, Rohit and KL Rahul in the 5th over. Soon after, Virat Kohli and Deepak Hooda got dismissed in the 7th and 8th over respectively, with the latter didn’t even trouble the scorers.
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On the 3rd ball of the 9th over, Hardik Pandya seemed to have connected the short ball from Ngidi well with a pull shot. However, because of the extra bounce on the pitch, the ball almost traveled to the deep fine-leg when Kagiso Rabada was screaming in off the rope and pulls off a full-length dive to take the catch of the day. It was superb fielding skills from Rabada.
Here is the video of the phenomenal catch from Kagiso Rabada:
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Earlier in the game, Virat Kohli looked in good touch to begin his innings after hitting a sublime cover drive to kickstart the middle overs. Ngidi bounced back with a couple of dot balls to stake his claim before pulling his length back in the penultimate delivery of the over.
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The former Indian skipper could not connect the way he wanted to, resulting in the ball going toward fine-leg. Kagiso Rabada, who was placed there, had to run finer to complete a composed catch just inches away from the boundary rope.
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India (Playing XI) – Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
South Africa (Playing XI) – Quinton de Kock (wk), Temba Bavuma (c), Rilee Rossouw, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Wayne Parnell, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje
