Watch: Kagiso Rabada’s high full-toss knocked out Faf du Plessis’ middle stump as the latter’s scoop attempt failed during the match between Texas Super Kings and MI New York in MLC 2023.
Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.
Texas won the toss and elected to bat first in the seventh match of the inaugural season of Major League Cricket. Du Plessis had two ordinary games – a golden duck in the first match against LA Knight Riders, and a 15-ball 14 in the second against Washington Freedom.
Coming into the third game of the season for TSK, du Plessis would have hoped to finally make a mark in the tournament but he failed for a third consecutive time.
Having scored eight runs off his first eight balls, du Plessis premeditated one of his trademark scoop shots against Rabada in the third over of the innings. Perhaps attempting a yorker, Rabada ended up missing his mark by a fair margin.
[breakout id=”0″][/breakout]
Du Plessis was in a perfect position to play the scoop, but the height of the full toss, coupled with the 136.8kph pace of the ball, meant he completely misjudged the trajectory and ended up missing it fair and square, only to see his stumps get shattered.
Dismissals off full tosses are rare as it is, but dismissals off a high full toss, where the batter exposes all stumps to play a ramp over fine leg and gets them destroyed in the process, are rarer still.
Texas ended up making 154-7 from their 20 overs courtesy of a 55-ball 74 from Devon Conway. Rabada finished with figures of 4-0-30-2. In response, MI New York couldn’t find the required momentum at any stage of their innings and ended up 17 runs short of the Texas total.
Watch Faf du Plessis get bowled by a high full toss from Kagiso Rabada:
What a MIND-BLOWING🤯 dismissal!
Faf Du Plessis heads back to the pavilion🏡 after missing his SCOOP shot!
2⃣0⃣/1⃣ (2.5) pic.twitter.com/f8pcVgEUZX
— Major League Cricket (@MLCricket) July 18, 2023