Watch: Shardul Thakur nips through Bavuma’s bat-pad gap, takes out off-stump with wobble-seam beauty
Watch: India’s Shardul Thakur dismissed Temba Bavuma with a sharp, angling delivery that sneaked through the South Africa captain’s bat-pad gap during the first ODI between the two teams in Lucknow.
Shardul, India’s first-change seamer in the rain-affected 40-over-a-side game, claimed his first wicket in the 15th over, giving India their second breakthrough of the evening. The ball, bowled with a scrambled seam, pitched on length, making Bavuma, on eight off 11, play at it. It did enough off the surface to jag in after pitching, pegging back the off stump after sneaking through the gap.
The dismissal extended Bavuma’s ongoing struggles with the bat: in the preceding T20I series, he managed scores of 0 (4), 0 (7) and 3 (8).
Shardul, meanwhile, continues to enjoy a prolific 2022 in ODIs. He’s now taken 16 wickets this year, only behind Prasidh Krishna among India seamers. With Jasprit Bumrah’s injury forcing him out of the 2022 T20 World Cup, India has a vacant bowling spot that Shardul would be eyeing. In the current scheme, though, there are other seamers who would consider themselves ahead of him in the pecking order.
