Hindustan Surkhiyan Desk:Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli was completely in awe of his team-mate AB de Villiers’ performance during his side’s 14-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in their Indian Premier League (IPL) clash at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium last evening.
Though the match was studded with many sparkling individual performances, the South African batsman’s gravity-defying boundary catch stole the show of the cricket world.
Sunrisers Hyderabad was chasing a huge target of 219 runs and was into its eighth over when England opener Alex Hales lofted Moeen Ali towards the midwicket for what appeared to be his fourth six.
However, De Villiers displayed superb athleticism by jumping high, instinctively stretching out his right hand to catch the ball which was quiet away from him.
Mesmerised by his team-mate’s performance, Kohli dubbed De Villiers’ catch as `spiderman stuff` and said that normal human beings don’t do such things.
“That was Spiderman stuff! You don’t do that as normal human beings. I thought it was going for a six, but he pulls it out, then the jump and then the balance. I mean, he can do freakish things, but I am used to it now. His shots still leave me in awe but his fielding I am pretty used to and that was fun to watch,” the International Cricket Council (ICC) quoted Kohli, as saying.
De Villiers, who was named `Man of the Match` for his 39-ball 69 that guided Royal Challengers Bangalore to a respectable total, played down his efforts saying that he made the catch look better than it actually was.
“I made it look better than it actually was. I got into a bad position, the ball had a bit of a curve on it. The minute I took the jump, I realized a little bit of my body was outside. I just had to put that right arm out and luckily it stuck,” the South African said.
With the win, the Virat Kohli-led side now hold a real chance of qualifying to the playoffs of the ongoing 11th edition of the league.
RCB will now square off with Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Saturday in their next IPL clash. (ANI)
