Picture Credit: Twitter
It is indeed cricket of the highest quality at the ICC Men's T20 World Cup. In the Super 12 round, one has seen some great individual brilliance coupled with team efforts that have stood out. While the match between South Africa and Bangladesh in Group 1 resulted in a fairly easy win for the Proteas, the Bangla Tigers did not go down without fighting.
Bangladesh were bowled out for 84 in the first innings and although it looked like South Africa would cruise to a win, even they lost three wickets inside the powerplay. However, the partnership with Rassie van der Dussen and captain Temba Bavuma worth 47 runs- the highest in the match- sealed the game in favour of the Proteas.
It took a special effort in the field by fielder Shoriful Islam to break the partnership but by then it was only a formality for South Africa to win the match which they did with 6 wickets in hand and 39 balls remaining. Shoriful's catch happened in the last ball of the 13th over being bowled by Nasum Ahmed. In this delivery, the left-arm spinner slowed down the pace of the ball forcing striker Van der Dussen to reach out for the ball to try and hit an aerial stroke.
As a result, the Protea batter did not quite hit it as well as he would have liked and it went higher in the air with not much distance on it. However, an alert Shoriful, who was stationed at mid-on, turned and ran towards the fence with his eyes on the ball before a forward dive to gather the ball coming from behind him.
Eventually, he caught the ball with two hands to complete a great effort. The video of the catch was shared by ICC on their social media. "What a catch! ? Shoriful dives for the grab to send van der Dussen off. #T20WorldCup | #SAvBAN," the post was captioned.
Here is the video:
The result has knocked Bangladesh out of the semifinal equation while South Africa are looking strong with three wins from four matches and are placed at the second position in Group 1 of the Super 12 round.