When Kieron Pollard is playing on the ground, you can always expect some fun on the pitch. Be it with the bat, with the ball or in the field, Pollard manages to grab the eyeballs every time he plays.
His recent exploit came in the third and the final ODI against Afghanistan in the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.
The incident happened in the 25th over of the Afghanistan innings when Pollard rather hilariously pulled out off a delivery which was initially called a no-ball. Bowling to Afghanistan batsman Asghar Afghan, Pollard forced the umpire to rule the ball a dead-ball after pulling out on his follow-through.
You can watch the video here.
This evoked a rather funny reaction from Pollard’s teammates and the opposition players as well.
As far as Pollard’s performance in this match is concerned, he scored 32 off 26 balls with a four and two sixes. With the ball, he bowled a wicketless spell giving away 20 runs in his five overs.
Windies wicketkeeper-batsman Shai Hope struck an unbeaten century (109 off 145 balls), hitting 11 boundaries in total to set up the chase for his side. They chased down 250 needed to win in 48.4 overs. Brandon King (39), Nicholas Pooran (21) and Roston Chase (42 not out) also chipped in with important runs.
Earlier in the game, West Indies won the toss and opted to field first. Hazratullah Zazai and Mohammad Nabi scored 50 each before former Afghanistan skipper Asghar Afghan scored a majestic 86 to help them register 249/7 at the end of their 50 overs. Skipper Rashid Khan failed both with the bat and the ball. He scored a duck with the bat and gave away 46 runs off his spell without taking a wicket.
Windies all-rounder Keemo Paul took three wickets in his spell to limit the Afghanistan batsmen from scoring big runs. He was well supported and backed up by Alzari Joseph and Roston Chase who took three wickets cumulatively.
Afghanistan came into this match after losing the first two ODIs of the three-match series which started from November 6. They play a three-match T20I series from November 14 to 17th next which will be followed by a one-off Test match from Nover 27- December 1.
Afghanistan and West Indies are both part of the World T20 2020 tournament scheduled to be held in Australia next year. While West Indies is placed alongside Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan in Group A, Afghanistan is in group B alongside India, England and South Africa.