England wicketkeeper-batter Ben Foakes provided comic relief to the viewers and his teammates in the final session of Day 1 of the Hyderabad Test. Foakes unaware of his surroundings crashed into all three stumps at the striker’s end trying to collect a throw from a fielder from deep square leg. The video went viral on social media and caught AB de Villiers’ attention.
The former South Africa captain poked fun at Foakes as he wrote on X: Ben Foakes (smiling emojis) that was hilarious. Proper Rugby tackle on the stumps”.
The unprovoked incent took place in the third over of India’s innings. Mark Wood bowled a 150.1 kmph inswinger. Indian skipper Rohit Sharma flicked it towards deep square leg. Ollie Pope picked it up and threw it at the keeper's end. Foakes ran into the stumps and uprooted all three of them.
Foakes saw the funny side of it and shared a laugh with the on-field umpire as he helped him put the stumps back in place. Zak Crawley too smiled as he made his way back to the fielding position.
Earlier, Foakes failed to make an impact with the bat. He joined skipper Ben Stokes when England lost half their side for 125. Foakes tried the defensive approach against Indian spinners. In the end, left-arm spinner Axar Patel was able to draw Foakes forward. The ball spun away and kissed the bat on its way to wicketkeeper Srikar Bharat's gloves. He managed to score just four runs from 24 balls.
Foakes also faltered with the DRS calls as he was not able to assist Stokes. England ended up wasting all three reviews in just 13.2 overs. This is the earliest a fielding team exhausted all their reviews in an innings.
The review taken against Shubman Gill was the closest. Tom Hartley darted one that hit Shubman Gill on the front foot as he went half-forward and missed the ball. Stokes went for the review but the ball-tracking technology showed that the ball would have gone over the stumps. They could not retain the review as the ball was not even clipping the stumps.
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