[Watch] R Ashwin Pulls Anrich Nortje For Two Jaw-Dropping Sixes

With R Ashwin, a team gets a player who could don several hats. A champion off-spinner, the 37-year-old continues to add strings to his bows as he was promoted in the role of a pinch-hitter by Rajasthan Royals against Delhi Capitals and Ashwin stepped up to score 29 runs in 19 balls on a pitch that wasn’t easy to bat.

RR and DC met on Thursday night at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.

Delhi were excellent with the ball in the first half of RR’s innings and had the Royals in trouble at 36/3 with the wickets of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, and Jos Buttler.

With plenty of overs of spin – in particular, those of Kuldeep Yadav to go – RR decided to shield Dhruv Jurel and Shimron Hetmyer and promote R Ashwin as a pinch-hitter. The veteran off-spinner didn’t waste much time and slogged Kuldeep Yadav for a six.

But the more thrilling shots came against Anrich Nortje, one of the fastest bowlers in the world. On the first ball of the 11th over, Ashwin picked up Nortje’s back-of-length delivery and deposited over deep mid-wicket.

Two balls later, R Ashwin played an even more majestic shot: standing tall, getting on top of the bounce and pulling stunningly once again over mid-wicket. The sound the bat made when in contact with the ball was utterly jaw-dropping.