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Watch: Fazalhaq Farooqi bowls comical, accidental moon ball first ball, clears keeper and slips for five runs

by Wisden Staff January 22, 2023 - 12:17pm 5 minute read

Watch: In an ILT20 match, Abu Dhabi Knight Riders’ Fazalhaq Farooqi‘s first ball flew out of his hands and soared over the head of the MI Emirates wicketkeeper to the boundary.

There was nothing unusual in the first over after the MI Emirates won the toss and put the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders in at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi: Trent Boult conceded five runs and had Kennar Lewis caught behind.

Farooqi came to bowl the second over. His first ball slipped out of his hand and sped skywards, flying some distance above the bemused batter Brandon King and wicketkeeper Nicholas Pooran.

In the early days of Twenty20 cricket, Jeremy Snape often used to toss the ball in the air, taking the pace off, foxing unsuspecting batters with the lack of pace.

However, that was a deliberate attempt, just like Tom Spedegue’s lobs that went up, only to land on the stumps with pinpoint accuracy. Of course, Spedegue was not a real person but the protagonist of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Story of Spedegue’s Droppers.

This was no such attempt but a slip, like Steven Jacobs’s in the 2016 CPL, to Shakib Al Hasan.

The ball finally landed some distance behind first slip. The fielder from gully tried his best, but given the head start the ball had, there was little he could do. Before bowling a single ball, Farooqi ended up conceding five no-balls – four of them byes – and a free hit.

Farooqi recovered well to finish with 4-0-27-2, taking out Andre Russell and Zawar Farid. Riding on Dhananjaya de Silva’s 40-ball 65, the Knight Riders got 170-7.

Russell then had to defend 20 in the last over. After Dwayne Bravo hit six, two, four, one to bring it down to seven off two, Najibullah Zadran hit two sixes to seal the match.