After posting a humungous 373/7 on the board thanks to superstar Virat Kohli‘s 45th ODI century, the hosts restricted the tourists at 306/8 with their skipper Dasun Shanaka ending up unbeaten on 108.
Shanaka played a brilliant fighting knock and stayed till the end but didn’t get enough support from other batters. However, Shanaka could’ve been dismissed at 98 when Mohammed Shami ran him out at the non-strikers’ end. But Indian captain Rohit Sharma withdrew the appeal and allowed his counterpart to carry on.
The incident occurred during the final over of Sri Lanka’s chase when Shami ran in to bowl but stopped right before delivering the ball, noticing Shanaka was out of the non-strikers’ crease. Shami then broke the stumps, and it stunned the Negombo-born all-rounder as he knew he was legitimately out.
But Rohit defused what could be a possible controversial situation by withdrawing the run-out appeal. As the Lankan captain was allowed to continue his innings, the 31-year-old went on to finish 108 not out off 88 balls.
Here is the video:
Seeing the heartwarming gesture of Rohit, former Sri Lanka cricketers Sanath Jayasuriya and Angelo Mathews were mighty impressed. Ex Lankan skipper Jayasuriya took to his official Twitter handle and doffed off his hat to Rohit for showing sportsmanship.
“The real winner was the sportsmanship of Rohit Sharma for refusing to take the run out. I doff my cap to you !” tweeted Jayasuriya.
Mathews also heaped rich praises on Rohit, saluting the Indian captain for his wonderful gesture and incredible sportsmanship.
“Not many captains would do this, but hats off to @ImRo45 for withdrawing the appeal even though the law says so! Displaying great sportsmanship,” wrote Mathews on Twitter.
After the game, Rohit was asked about the incident, and he said he had no idea why Shami did that (run out). The Mumbaikar explained that Shanaka was close to his century and they wanted to get him out according to their plans, not the other way around.
“I had no idea Shami had done that. When he went up in an appeal… Again, he [Shanaka] is batting on 98. The way he batted was brilliant. We got to give it to him. We cannot get him out like that. We wanted to get him out the way we thought we would get him out. But that was not something that we thought of. But again, hats off to him, he played really well,” said Rohit at the post-match presentation.
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