India pacer Prasidh Krishna and opening batter Rohit Sharma combined for the first three wickets of the Men in Blue’s bowling innings against Afghanistanin the ongoing third ODI in Chennai. Rohit caught the edges of the entire Afghan top-three off Prasidh’s fiery opening spell at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, marking the first such instance in India’s 1078-match-long ODI history.
There are two previous instances of a fielder taking three catches off a bowler in an ODI for India — VVS Laxman off Irfan Pathan against Zimbabwe in Perth in 2004 and Shikhar Dhawan off Jasprit Bumrah against Bangladesh in Dubai in 2018. But neither instance had the fielder and the bowler combining for three consecutive wickets, let alone the first three wickets of the essay.
In Prasidh and Rohit’s case, the wickets were nearly identical.
The right-arm pacer struck with the very first ball of his spell, dismissing Rahmanullah Gurbaz with a sucker ball swinging away that induced an outside edge to first slip, where Rohit held a comfortable catch. Prasidh continued to probe relentlessly around the off-stump channel, generating pace, seam movement, and bounce that repeatedly troubled the Afghan batters.
His pressure paid off again when Rahmat Shah edged another testing delivery to Rohit, before Ibrahim Zadran became the third victim of the same combination. Prasidh was not finished there, as he later removed Darwish Rasooli for his fourth wicket, using extra bounce to force a mis-hit that was brilliantly caught by Shreyas Iyer.
This was only the seventh instance of an Indian pacer taking four or more wickets in the first ten overs of an ODI innings. From Rohit’s point of view, it was only the third time that one fielder had caught the first three wickets to fall in an innings.
The combination left India in a brilliant position, with Afghanistan reeling at 36/4.
