VIDEO | “Hard of Hearing” South Africans find a new way to lose against India

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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While fans can use any negative adjective to describe SA’s performance in the limited overs series, they can certainly add “hard of hearing” to the list as well. The Proteas failed to hear a nick off Shikhar Dhawan’s glove which resulted in him scoring 62 extra runs in India’s 203-run innings.

India started the T20I series against South Africa as if they were playing a T10 game with every batsman playing an attacking brand of cricket. Even though they ended the innings in a tame manner, by the 10th over of the game, they had already amassed 110 runs. A majority of the damage had been done by Dhawan, who by the end of his innings had added 72 runs to the score.

Early on, despite losing Rohit Sharma in the initial stages, India were already cruising at 43/1 in just 3.2 overs in the first T20I at the Johannesburg. Dhawan and Suresh Raina were going well by not only consolidating the short balls but also scoring freely off them. However, on the third ball of the fourth over, the hosts had a chance to send the southpaw packing, but a brain fade moment ensured that didn’t happen.

Debutante Junior Dala had already claimed the wicket of Rohit Sharma and could have ticked off Dhawan from his list of world-class scalps as well. The 28-year-old bowled a short ball right into Dhawan’s ribcage which the Indian southpaw tried to hit down to fine leg. However, as the ball flew into the gloves of Heinrich Klaasen, the keeper put up a half-hearted appeal. But, with no one offering any support, Klaasen gave up as well. Seeing this, the umpire signalled for a wide and game progressed normally.

However, the replays showed that Dhawan had actually nicked the ball on its way to the keeper who had been right to appeal in the first place. Ultra edge showed a huge spike and had the Proteas actually gone ahead to appeal for the wicket, they could have been chasing 30-odd runs lower than the 204 run target that they were handed. 

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