MSL 2018: AB de Villiers uses walkie-talkie on the field to interact with the coach

South Africa’s own T20 league, Mzansi Super League (MSL), finally got underway on Friday after crossing so many hurdles. Cape Town Blitz led by Dawid Malan faced the AB de Villiers‘ Tshwane Spartans in the tournament opener and the home side came out on top to spoil the latter’s return to the cricketing field. However, more than the game what seeked the attention of many was De Villiers using a walkie-talkie to interact with the coach Mark Boucher during the first innings.

This comes as a unique innovation in the MSL as an electronic device has never ever been used on the field by the players. There have been instances when the commentators coming on the field to chat with the players and a batsman or a fielder speaking to the commentators while during the action. But the incident of the fielding captain using the walkie-talkie took place for the first time.

Surprising incident

The first use of the walkie-talkie was spotted during the sixth over of the first innings. They were probably sharing the tactics with each other with a partnership building between Jason Smith and Janneman Malan. Interestingly, after the chat, the latter was castled by Robert Frylinck off the very next ball.

The same incident repeated during the 14th over as well and even the spectators were quick to point out the same. However, Dawid Malan, Cape Town skipper, wasn’t seen using the device in the second innings. It seems that MSL has introduced a new innovation into the game and there might be limitations on how many times the captain can use during the innings as De Villiers was seen using it only twice.

Cronje and Woolmer predicted

Another startling fact about this innovation is the Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer had predicted these changes in the game close to 20 years ago. Both of them passed away in different unfortunate incidents but their predictions were spot on as South Africa turns out to be the first country to invent the change.

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