India’s opening batsman Rohit Sharma showcased his fielding skills when he took a breathtaking catch in the slips in the 3rd ODI. The incident occurred in the first innings during Sri Lanka’s batting.
Jasprit Bumrah was bowling the 8th over of the innings and Kusal Mendis was the batsman facing up to him. The pacer bowled a delivery at a good length, outside the off stump, to which the batsman flashed hard.
The ball flew wide of the third slip where Rohit Sharma was standing. He judged the pace of the ball beautifully and dived full length towards his right and plucked it out of the air with both hands.
Here’s the video
https://twitter.com/Cricvids1/status/901744531120340992
Bumrah’s brilliant spell
Mendis’s wicket was the second scalp for Jasprit Bumrah. Before that, he had accounted for the wicket of Niroshan Dickwella LBW for 13. His first spell included these 2 wickets and put the Sri Lankan batting line-up on the back foot from the start.
The pacer came back at the death and did what he knows best. When the Sri Lankan batsmen were looking to up the ante, he first removed Lahiru Thirimanne for 80 off 105 balls, just when he was shaping up to play big strokes.
Then, he sent back Milinda Siriwardana and Akila Dananjaya to complete a five wicket haul. He became the first Indian pacer since 2014 to pick up 5 wickets. The last Indian fast bowler was Stuart Binny who had picked up 6 wickets against Bangladesh.
Bumrah ended with figures of 27/5 in 10 overs which turned out to be his first five wicket haul and the best figures of his ODI career. Sri Lanka were halted for 217/9 after 50 overs and once again, they couldn’t gather too many runs.
Where Bhuvneshwar Kumar hasn’t picked up a single wicket in the 3 matches so far, Jasprit Bumrah has filled in for him big time and picked up 11 wickets so far, being the leading wicket-taker in the series by far.
