Sanju Samson pulls off a screamer over his head against South Africa 'A'

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? NO! it’s Sanju Samson. Such was the incredible effort from the IPL star against the South Africa ‘A’ side off the bowling of Yuzvendra Chahal at the Triangular series match at LC de Villiers Oval, Pretoria. India managed to hold the nerves in the thriller and clinched the match before the final takes place on Tuesday.

The magical moment occurred during the first ball of the 25th over of the South African innings as Dwayne Pretorius took strike batting at 17 off 25 balls. South Africans were reeling at 128-3, with Heinrich Klaasen trying to hold one end up on 63 off just 58 balls. Yuzvendra Chahal, using all his guile and deception, offered a sumptuous well-flighted ball while Pretorius tried to smack him over midwicket boundary, 10 rows back.

The end result was that Pretorius only managed to edge one over Point on the off-side, expecting the ball to lob over the fielder placed there. However, Dwayne, perhaps, received the shock of his life to witness Sanju Samson take a screamer with his superhuman efforts. The ball was well outside the reach of Samson, who is essentially also a top-notch wicketkeeper. With the help of his Herculean attempt, Samson leapt backwards to grab hold of the ball, with him 3 feet parallel to the ground.

In the end, the target set by the South Africans turned out to be minutely short, as India managed to clinch the thriller at Pretoria today by one wicket in the last over. The brilliance of Heinrich Klaasen was eclipsed by the finishing abilities of Manish Pandey. The swashbuckling 128 off 107 balls turned out to go in vain as Pandey took his side home with his 85-ball 93. Shardul Thakur and Siddharth Kaul ripped apart the home side as they shared 7 wickets among themselves.

Watch the catch here