Rovman Powell Hurts Himself While Saving A Kid During SA vs WI T20I: The second T20I between South Africa and West Indies at the SuperSport Park, Centurion, on 26th March, will be remembered for the record-breaking batting display from both the teams which saw the hosts chase down the target of 259 runs to record the highest successful run-chase in T20Is.
Johnson Charles’ century and half-century from Kyle Mayers, plus cameos from skipper Rovman Powell, Romario Shepherd and Odean Smith propelled West Indies to 258 on the flat pitch and small boundaries at the SuperSport Park.
South Africa, who boasted of the world record highest successful ODI chase of 438 vs Australia in 2006, came out all guns blazing, and riding on a century from Quinton de Kock, half-century from Reeza Hendricks and quickfire cameos from 4 other batters gunned down this target of 259 with 7 balls to spare and 6 wickets in hand.
The West Indies fielders and bowlers felt helpless during South Africa’s batting.
Amid this, though, skipper Rovman Powell made a heroic save of a small, 5-year-old ball boy at the boundary line and instead put himself in the line of a serious injury.
In the 3rd over of South Africa’s innings, when Quinton de Kock drove the ball towards the long-off boundary, Rovman Powell gave it a chase.
As the ball was about to reach the boundary, this little ball boy reached out for the ball. In his fast running momentum, Rovman Powell jumped around the ball boy, evaded a second ball boy sitting behind, and crashed straight into the LED hoardings just beyond the boundary line.
The play stopped for a long while as the West Indies physio attended to Rovman Powell who was certainly in pain after colliding with the LED boards and was limping. However, soon after the West Indies skipper continued to field and even bowled a couple of overs, taking the wicket of Hendricks.
This act of Rovman Powell putting himself to an injury in order to not clash with the little ball boy was hailed by all the fans.
VIDEO: Rovman Powell injures himself while avoiding crashing into the ball boy
Rovman Powell, giving chase at full speed, has done extremely well not to completely wipe out these two kids 😳#SAvWI pic.twitter.com/fNRVqkwg7n
— Daniel (@DanSenior97) March 26, 2023
Speaking about some stats from this historic chase, this was the first-ever T20I to aggregate 500-plus runs. These are also the most runs scored in all T20 cricket – including domestic games – surpassing the 515 runs scored by Multan Sultans and Quetta Gladiators in Rawalpindi during the recently concluded PSL.
81 boundaries were hit by both teams in this game, another new T20 record, going past the 78 recorded during the PSL game between Sultans and Gladiators earlier this month.
The 35 sixes in this match are the highest for a T20I, beating the 33 sixes between Bulgaria and Serbia in 2022. West Indies hit 22 sixes, the joint-highest by a team in a T20I, equaling Afghanistan’s 22 effort against Ireland in 2019.
Losing captain Rovman Powell said:
“When we came off halfway, we thought we had enough. Credit has to be given to Quinton de Kock and Reeza Hendricks.They took us off to a flier and played exceptional cricket. They applied pressure from ball one.”
