Watch: Kieron Pollard takes a ripper to dismiss Babar Azam

Published - 01 Oct 2016, 23:22 IST | Updated - 01 Oct 2016, 23:22 IST

2 Min Read

The Pakistan vs West Indies 1^st ODI was moving well in favor of the hosts with Babar Azam batting as brilliantly as he was and coming hard at West Indies having already scored his hundred. On the first ball of the 43rd over from Carlos Brathwaite with Pakistan’s score reading 211/5 Babar tried to go for another big shot but just as the ball left his bat, looked like it was a little too close to his body and he might not have got enough. For his credit, Jason Holder had the right man at the right place Kieron Pollard at the long-on fence always makes it difficult for the batsmen to get away with marginal sixes.

Babar played the flick with a low bat angle and tried to use his wrists to power the ball for its journey. It was sailing and looked like it would Pollard but the man never gives up when on the cricket field. He jumped, got his hands to the ball pushed it back in the air, went outside the ropes, came back in and finished the catch. He took his hat off to bow to the crowd that applauded his marvelous effort.

The umpires had to go for the replays and it showed Pollard’s brilliance in slower frames and as it happened. First, he stretched to the utmost he could and jumped in the air, then realized he would go over acted upon it to throw the ball back up all this while he was airborne and still had enough time to get back inside the playing area and grab the ball. How fantastic is that?

We have seen a lot of it in the Twenty20 leagues but it’s not often that we see such thrilling efforts in ODIs it needs a player as skilled as Pollard to get through with it as professionally as he did.