NZ vs BAN: Trent Boult pulls off a one-handed screamer to send Liton Das back

Trent Boult

Trent Boult, nearing 32, is fit as a fiddle due to which he remains as one of the sharpest fielders in the New Zealand national team. He gave a glimpse of his agility during the third ODI against Bangladesh on Friday, March 26 at the Basin Reserve in Wellington.

He was fielding at the third man region when he pulled off a stunning catch to send back Liton Das. Das didn’t have great outings in the first two ODIs, but was looking good for a decent knock. With three fours, he had scored 21 at more than a run-a-ball and had gotten his eyes in.

Trent Boult takes a superlative catch

But in the last ball of the seventh over, the right-handed opener perished. Matt Henry bowled a short delivery outside the off-stump and Das tried to pull the ball on to the leg side. But Das found an outside edge and the ball flew to third man where Boult was standing.

Boult had to run in quite a bit after which he pulled off a full-length dive on his left. He couldn’t get both hands to the ball but somehow managed to catch hold of the ball with his left hand.

Henry was absolutely stunned with Boult’s piece of effort. It was the third wicket to go down for the Tigers with the score at 26. After the Black Caps scored 318, Henry got the first three wickets.

It’s not the first time when Boult has plucked the ball out of thin air. During the 2018 Indian Premier League (IPL), Boult had shown his class as well. When he was playing for the Delhi Daredevils, now Capitals, the Kiwi took a stunning catch at the boundary to send back Virat Kohli, the skipper of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).

Though Kohli got out, he couldn’t stop praising Boult for the superlative piece of work. “[The catch} I was stunned when he took it, that’s a brilliant catch, it happens in the IPL especially. Good to see. That’s a catch when you look back, you don’t feel bad about getting out,” Kohli had said back then. Boult’s catch had gone in vain as RCB won by six wickets.