VIDEO | Sri Lanka women recreate Azhar Ali's run out as 'ghost boundary' leads to bizarre dismissal

10/05/2019

Last year, in what was one of the most bizarre run-outs in cricket history, Azhar Ali was run out by Australia after the former stood static in the middle assuming that the ball went to the boundary. Today, Sri Lanka Women recreated the very same incident, resulting in an embarrassing run out.

After suffering three crushing defeats in the T20Is, Sri Lanka Women set sights on putting up a much better showing in ODIs against the formidable Australian side. After being set a stiff target of 282 to be chased down, the visitors lost half their side in no time and were soon reduced to 110-6 by the 34th over.

This left skipper Shashikala Siriwardene and Oshadi Ranasinghe in the middle to salvage things for the Lankans in what looked like an inevitable victory for the Aussies. On the fifth ball of the 35th over, leggie Georgia Wareham, who was in the middle of a good spell, bowled a rank half-tracker outside leg-stump, which was pulled fine by Ranasinghe. While the ball looked like it was going to go to the boundary, the fielder cut it off at the very last moment, albeit fumbling while gathering the ball.

However, unaware of this, on the assumption that the ball had reached the boundary, Ranasinghe suffered a mini brain-fade, stopping mid-way through the pitch while heading back for the second run. A puzzled Siriwardene too looked like stopping momentarily, but quickly realized what was going on and asked Ranasinghe to complete the run. In an almost sacrifice of sorts, Ranasinghe crossed over but it was to no avail, as wicket-keeper Alyssa Healy took the bails off in a flash, sending the all-rounder packing.

The whole passage of play resulted in a comical run-out, reminiscent to that of Azhar Ali against the Australian Men's team last year, which went viral for the sheer absurdity of the dismissal.