Azhar Ali on his run-out against Australia: The 33-year old Pakistani batsmen now looks at the funny side of his bizarre run-out
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Cricket has always been a gentlemen’s game, that being said it doesn’t mean that its all about serious stuff. Sometimes in between those 22 yards we get to see situations that turn these gentlemen into joke of the town.
Wednesday in Abu Dhabi provided a similar situation when Pakistan were playing Australia at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium as Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq were involved in arguably the most farcical run-out ever seen on a cricket pitch, which resulted in the former’s dismissal.
It took him a few hours but by the end of the day, Azhar could see the funny side of what had happened when he and Asad were stranded mid-pitch as the Australian captain Tim Paine whipped of the bails with the Pakistani pair in delusion that Azhar had registered a boundary when he edged Peter Siddle to third man.
The ball however was held up in the slow Abu Dhabi outfield and thanks to Mitchell Starc’s run and quick throw which made sure we cricket fans got something to nerd about for months and probably years to come.
Just as the wicketkeeper took the bails off, the Aussies reacted in delight as if all of a sudden they were now out of the test match mode. On the other hand the Pakistani batsmen looked stunned and weren’t getting the hint as to what had happened.
But Azhar who is an experienced campaigner now knows that the incident is unlikely to be forgotten soon.
“Obviously i know i will be asked this question for a long time now, especially when i go back home,” he said in the end day press conference.
“My [three] sons will ask it in a more funny way. At that time obviously it was a shocker. I didn’t realise that the ball had stopped at the boundary and someone ran and picked it up. It was one of those things where neither Asad or i had a sight of it and what was to follow.”
The 33-year old added, “Now when i will try and teach my sons something, they’ll use this incident as a comeback.”
To this statement even the media weren’t able to hold their laugh as it surely is one of the top 10 moments in the 2018 cricket calender and one really doubts whether we would get to see something like this on the cricket pitch anytime soon.
