Ahmedabad medical science student Mohit Chavda was the toast of day two of the ongoing fourth Test between India and Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad as he went viral after finding a lost ball that was hit for a six near sight screen.
India opener Shubman Gill smashed a monster six in the final over of play on Friday as the ball became stuck in white sheets around the sight screen at the colossal Narendra Modi Stadium. The match was delayed by several minutes, with umpires preparing to resume play with a new ball.
However, 24-year-old Mohit jumped into the area which was cordoned off to search for the ball while the security tried to stop him.
"I didn't find the ball at first so I waved that I can't find the ball. The umpire waved that they managed to get another ball and they told me you just leave from there because I was disturbing the vision,” Chavda told AAP on Saturday.
Chavda intended to pick up one of his sandals that had fallen off and then go back to his seat, but upon doing that he discovered "gold". His celebration, standing tall with his arms in the air, after picking up the ball led to him becoming the day's biggest meme.
"When I went back to get the sandal, at the same time the ball was actually on the seat and my foot was on the ball. So much of an adrenaline rush going at that time. I didn't know what actually happened until after I saw the broadcast of the clip on BCCI TV,” he added.
Since then, Chavda had to turn some of his social media accounts to private due to the sheer volume of content and has lots of requests from friends and family members.
"I didn't sleep until 2 or 3 am, I was just going through all the messages, memes, videos; so many funny comments, people are too creative nowadays,” he said.
Meanwhile, former India coach Ravi Shastri on commentary made the whole incident more memorable for Chavda as he exclaimed: "Oh, he's found it, he has found it! He has found gold!”
Chavda called it a "lifetime memory" and said: "How he (Shastri) described the whole scene, it was fabulous. We in India, we all are fans of Harsha Bhogle and Ravi Shastri's commentary and that's what I got.”
Here is the video of Chavda’s moment of fame:
(AAP inputs)
