A match between Sydney Thunders and Melbourne Stars on Thursday in the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL) witnessed a bizarre incident as Chris Morris tried to ‘Mankad’ Marcus Stoinis.
During the Melbourne Stars innings, in the run-up to one of Morris’ delivery the ball slipped out of his hand. The bowler then tried to poke fun at Stoinis and attempted a fake Mankad without the ball in his hand.
Stoinis, on the other hand, had not seen the ball fly out of Morris’ hand and quickly made his way back to the crease before realising what had actually happened.
Taking to the official Twitter handle, BBL posted a clip of the moment and wrote, “The attempted-no-ball-Mankad-fake… Chris Morris has that move perfected! #BBL09”.
However, it was Stoinis of Melbourne Stars who got the better of Morris as the former played a 51-ball knock of 58 runs to help his team win the game. Nick Larkin, with his 65 off 45 deliveries, was the highest scorer for the Stars in their successful chase of 143.
Batting first Thunder had put on 142, with Alex Ross and Matthew Gilkes pitching with important 40 and 27 runs respectively in a track which was tricky to bat on.
Haris Rauf, who is the third-highest wicket-taker of the season and was replaced by Dale Steyn in the last match, was the best bowler for Stars with a figure of 3/24. Glenn Maxwell was also brilliant with the ball for his numbers of 2/17.
For Thunders, Daniel Sams was the best player of the night. Though he could not help his team defend the total, his 3/25 helped Thunder take the match to the last over. Nathan McAndrew and Morris had chipped in with two wickets each.