VIDEO | Qais Ahmad’s Mitchell Johnson impression leaves Ben McDermott with sore fingers

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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Afghanistan leg-spinner Qais Ahmed has a lot of tricks up his sleeve and interestingly, a ‘bouncer’ is also one of them. But the leggie’s weapon of destruction almost backfired for the Hurricanes today as it caught the wicket-keeper Ben McDermott off guard, leaving him with bruised fingers.

Afghanistani teen Qais Ahmad has been making quite the name for himself in the T20 circuit, bamboozling batsmen with the innumerable armours he has in his arsenal - be it the venomous conventional leg-spinner or the flipper or the viciously-turning googly. And in the recently-concluded T10 league, he pulled another rabbit out of the hat by unveiling his very own bouncer, something that downed the mighty Andre Russell. 

Having already picked 5 wickets in his first 2 BBL games of the season, the Hurricanes, on Tuesday versus the Renegades, once again rest their hopes on the shoulders of Qais, hoping for him to pull off another magic trick or two to guide them to victory. And the leggie obliged, albeit his trick ending as a ‘tragicomedy’. 

On the second ball of the 9th over, with Shaun Marsh on strike batting on 31*, Qais decided to ‘go for the kill’ and unleash the bouncer on the batsman. Prior to the ball, he was trying to signal to the wicket-keeper McDermott that the bouncer was indeed on its way, by stretching both his ankles in a weird manner. But the keeper, who was in a world of his own, failed to pay attention to the bowler’s signals and later faced the wrath of his own actions.

The bouncer from Qais, which was clocked at 121.6 kph, evaded the batsman, going way past his head. And unaware of what the bowler was planning, the keeper, McDermott, was thrown completely off-guard and as he tried to catch the ball, was struck bang on his fingertips, leaving him in pain. And to add insult to injury, the ball raced off to the boundary line, meaning the Renegades where gifted four easy runs. 

Qais’ ‘surprise weapon’ ended up in the undoing of his own teammate and skipper, who was left with sore fingers. But luckily for the Hurricanes, it did not affect them as with the bat, McDermott struck an unbeaten fifty to guide his team home. 

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