Tabraiz Shamsi, a South African spinner, has clarified his cheeky dig at Suryakumar Yadav’s stunning catch in the T20 World Cup 2024 final after netizens slammed him for his poor taste.
South Africa played their second ICC event final since the 1998 Knockout Trophy, as they faced India in the summit clash of T20 World Cup 2024 in Barbados on June 29. Batting first, India had posted 176/7 thanks to Virat Kohli’s brilliant 76 and Akshar Patel’s 47 runs.
South Africa were doing brilliantly in the chase despite a few early wickets. With Heinrich Klaasen and Tristan Stubbs at the crease and David Miller to come, Proteas needed 30 to win off 30 balls.
However, the trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, and Hardik Pandya choked the run-making while removing the dangerous Klaasen, Stubbs, and Marco Jansen. Needing 16 runs to win in the final over, David Miller was astonishingly caught at the boundary by Suryakumar Yadav to end all hopes of Proteas.
The juggling catch was checked by the TV umpire from all angles before giving Miller the signal to return to the pavilion. In the end, South Africa lost by 7 runs and India joined West Indies and England as two-time T20 World Cup champions.
South Africans may now see the lighter side of the setback, with spinner Tabraiz Shamsi joking about the catch in response to a viral video from playground cricket. In the video, the players go to great measures to determine whether a fielder violated the boundary line when catching the ball.
Shamsi said that this was how Miller's catch should have been assessed by the umpire in the T20 World Cup final.
“If they used this method to check the catch in the World Cup final maybe it would have been given not out,” said Shamsi with a smiling emoji in response to the video.
However, a lot of users on X didn’t see the joke in Shamsi’s post and responded to him with some choicest words.
Shamsi later clarified his post by saying: "In case some people dont understand that it's meant to be a joke and no one is crying... let me explain it to you like a 4-year-old child It's A Joke".
