Bangladesh’s lesser-known off-spinner Salma Khatun on Friday (March 25) delivered a peach past the defence of Meg Lanning, the Australian captain and one of the best batters in world cricket. Playing Match 25 of the ICC Women’s World Cup in Wellington, Lanning suffered her rarest of rare first-ball dismissals for a duck when she was […]
Bangladesh’s lesser-known off-spinner Salma Khatun on Friday (March 25) delivered a peach past the defence of Meg Lanning, the Australian captain and one of the best batters in world cricket.
Playing Match 25 of the ICC Women’s World Cup in Wellington, Lanning suffered her rarest of rare first-ball dismissals for a duck when she was forced to play down the wrong line by Khatun.
Showing a dead bat after assuming that the ball would turn and come into the right-hander, the batter was done in by how straight Salma Khatun was able to keep the ball after pitching, before it duly disturbed her off-stump.
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Meg Lanning was out to a top delivery from Bangladesh off-spinner Salma Khatun.
The wicket ball was on display on the fourth ball of the 8th over in the Australian run-chase. Chasing a paltry 136-run target in the rain-affected 43-overs match, Australian skipper Lanning had just walked up to the crease at No.3 and was looking to get off strike.
This is when Salma Khatun yield her magic with the ball in hand, as defeated the great batter with the drift and loop on the ball and made her play the incorrect angle of the delivery.
It then pitched and straighten just enough to evade Lanning’s outside edge and hit that off-stump.
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Now, interestingly, the bails that usually stand on top of the stumps had already fallen off because of the heavy Wellington wind. But that was no issue since Khatun had got Lanning out bowled and send her back for once without a run on the board.
Khatun has been the stand-out performer with the ball for the emerging Bangladeshi side that is still finding its feet against the best opposition in the world.
Despite her team’s struggles, she has emerged as a solid cricketer, bagging 8 wickets from her six outings of the tournament with an economy rate of 3.63.
The 31-year-old can proudly boast of Lanning’s dismissal in her World Cup kitty as she got inarguably one of the world’s best players out with a top delivery that made her look like a lesser player.
Lanning leads the most successful team in international cricket right now and has made nearly 9,000 runs in her illustrious career aged 30.
