In the high scoring 1st T20 game between England and Pakistan, Haris Rauf grabbed a tremendous catch. He was lucky to have caught the ball without hurting himself. Rauf and Sohaib Maqsood almost crashed into each other for taking the catch.
Haris Rauf’s Catch
While chasing the humungous total of 232 runs, the England team lost 2 wickets in just 4 overs. In the very next over the Pakistan pacer, Mohammad Hasnain bowled a short delivery to Moeen Ali. Moeen, while looking to pull the ball over the mid-wicket area for a six, tried to hit the ball with brute force.
Moeen, mistimed the shot and the ball hit the top edge of the bat and went towards deep mid-wicket. Haris Rauf covered some nice distance to grab the catch. He ran towards his left from his initial short-mid wicket position. At the same time, Sohaib Maqsood came in running from the deep mid-wicket boundary for the same catch.
Haris Rauf did brilliantly well to grab the catch despite running backwards. Both Sohaib Maqsood and Haris Rauf avoided crashing into each other, which could’ve ended up being a terrible collision. Rauf ended up being in Maqsood’s arms after taking the catch. The former ended up celebrating the catch by raising his right hand in which he had the ball grabbed.
The collision between the two players reminded the commentators about another ghastly incident that happened back in 1999. In a test series against Srilanka, Steve Waugh and Jason Gillespie collided with each other where Steve Waugh pounded him into Gillespie’s shoulder. Fortunately, nothing like that happened with the Pakistan players.
One fan in his hilarious tweet said that Haris Rauf caught the ball, Sohaib Maqsood caught Haris Rauf and the audience caught their hearts dropping to the floor.
Here’s the video of the incident
https://twitter.com/PakistaniReacts/status/1416122922045886465
A diving catch from Haris Rauf, leaping into Sohaib Maqsood's arms! 😅
Have you ever seen anything like it?! pic.twitter.com/1EYj1vwqYo
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) July 16, 2021
Summary of the 1st T20 between ENG and PAK
In the first innings the Pakistan openers, captain Babar Azam (85) and the vice-captain Mohammad Rizwan (88) helped Pakistan reach a massive total of 232 runs in their 20 overs. Tom Curran took 2 wickets for England.
In the second half of the match, despite the furious innings of Liam Livingstone, England only managed 201 runs. Livingstone played a knock of 103 in just 43 balls with a strike rate of 239.53.
Watch Video: Matt Parkinson bowls a ridiculous delivery to dismiss Imam-ul-Haq
Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi was declared the ‘Man of the Match’ for his match-winning spell of 3.2-0-30-3 including dismissals of Dawid Malan (1), Jonny Bairstow (11) and Matt Parkinson (0).
The 2nd T20 match of the series will be played in Leeds on July 18.