IPL 2018: AB de Villiers mentions Hales' catch as most satisfying

AB de Villiers and prowess as a batsman is self-explanatory and doesn’t require an introduction. Moreover, the South African cricketer is an agile fieldsman, who doesn’t shy away from throwing himself in the outfield. He has inflicted several dismissals on the backs of his sheer brilliance as a fielder. He is playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

On Thursday, RCB played their penultimate round-robin match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium and de Villiers pulled out another screamer. He took a spectacular catch at the deep mid-wicket boundary to dismiss Alex Hales off Moeen Ali’s off-breaks at a time when the English batsman threatened to take the match away from the home team.

“A jump was needed”- AB de Villiers

Following the stupendous take, he was hailed by the commoners and the rest of the cricketing fraternity. Moreover, the 34-year old attracted appreciations from Virat Kohli, the RCB skipper, who termed the catch as a Superman-like effort. In his column for the Times of India, de Villiers mentioned the catch as the most satisfying. He also explained the approach he employed while going for the catch.

“When Alex Hales struck the ball high and hard over mid-wicket during our match against SRH in Bengaluru, my first thought was ‘try and create a chance’. I needed to run hard, to make metres just to get a hand on the ball, before I could even think of taking a catch. So I picked my line and ran as hard as possible, keeping my eyes fixed on the ball, but it was soaring high, up high into the night sky,” he wrote.

“Something else was needed. A jump was needed, so I slowed down a little, creating space to use my arms to propel myself as far into the air as possible… so I jumped, and reached up and backwards and, somehow, the ball stuck in my outstretched right hand.

The job wasn’t half done. As I came down, the ball slipped from my fingers and I only just managed to push it towards my stomach… and then to hold what must rate as one of the most satisfying catches of my career,” de Villiers added while mentioning the extra bit of effort required to complete the catch.

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