Hanuma Vihari takes a one-handed catch on his county debut for Warwickshire

With the Indian Premier League going on, there is a lot of limelight on the Indian players who are playing in the tournament. The league has provided a lot of glitz and glamour to many players and made them household names. However, the league doesn’t have some of the most talented players in India. One of them is Hanuma Vihari, who made his county cricket debut on Thursday. 

The Andhra Pradesh player took a fantastic catch to announce his arrival while playing for Warwickshire against Nottinghamshire in the County Championship 2021 match. He took an absolute blinder of a catch with one hand during the match at the Trent Bridge, Nottingham. He was signed by Warwickshire just a week ago and he arrived in England at very short notice to cover for Pieter Malan, who was initially signed to play. 

Vihari, who starred in India’s historic Test series win in Australia, had to miss the final Test during that tour. He injured himself while playing a fighting inning to help India draw the Sydney Test. His injury kept him out of action from the team’s home series against England as well. Unfortunately, he went unsold in the IPL 2021 auction. 

Vihari, unsold in the IPL, goes to England for county cricket

Coming back to the catch which he took, it happened at a crucial stage of the innings. Nottinghamshire opted to bat after winning the toss. Warwickshire bowlers did a superb job and picked up four wickets early in the day. At 63 for 4, Nottinghamshire were struggling but captain Steven Mullaney and Joe Clarke started building a partnership. 

As soon the score went past 100, William Rhodes was introduced into the attack and he struck immediately. Rhodes bowled a gentle half-volley on the leg stump but Mullaney got deceived by the pace while trying to turn the ball on the leg side. Vihari, standing at the mid-wicket position, started running behind as the ball was going past him. However, he just kept his hand out and the ball got stuck into it.

With that catch, Nottinghamshire’s fifth wicket fell. The video of the catch was uploaded by the official Twitter handle of the county championship. The caption of the video was, “A debut wonder catch for Hanuma Vihari”.

Hanuma Vihari’s catch:

A debut wonder catch for Hanuma Vihari 🇮🇳👏

LIVE STREAMS: https://t.co/SyebMiubg3 #LVCountyChamp | @WarwickshireCCC pic.twitter.com/yaYX4lFCax

— LV= Insurance County Championship (@CountyChamp) April 15, 2021