Watch: In the T20 Blast final, supposedly the most prestigious domestic short-form game in England, Surrey opening pair Jason Roy and Hashim Amla supplied a piece of calling and running that wouldn’t have been out of place on any village green around the country.

It came a day after Jofra Archer had helped put on a comical mix-up of his own in the Indian Premier League, though this was, if anything, better. Or worse.

At first it was your standard ‘yes-no-yes-oh-s***’, Roy and Amla both somewhere near the middle of the pitch as Steven Mullaney collected at square leg and fired in. The only issue was, he fired well wide of the keeper, with Tom Moores diving but failing to collect.

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That was far from the end of the drama however. Roy and Amla, having been on completely different wavelengths a second ago, suddenly found themselves eerily in sync, first turning towards the keeper’s end in unison before both setting off for the non-striker’s as one.

The pair were saved by another mishap in the field, with Notts Outlaws captain Dan Christian failing to pick up while backing up, and after some vociferous calling, Roy finally convinced his partner to return to where he started.

“Hashim Amla and Jason Roy are not speaking the same language,” said Mark Butcher on commentary. “In fact, it looked like they weren’t from the same species out there for a little while.”

“This was beautiful. Beautiful cricket all round,” said Michael Atherton. I suppose that depends on your definition.

Pure art.pic.twitter.com/taZ7xpwD4v

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) October 4, 2020