It seemed like Mitchell Santner was making up for the dropped catches throughout the ODI and T20I series against India. Santner was able to take difficult catches diving forward or running behind when the ball was going past the 30-yard circle. But, it was not one of Santner’s catches which can be categorised as an exemplary effort but how he formed a ‘tag-team’ with Colin de Grandhomme to get Manish Pandey’s wicket on deep midwicket boundary.
On the second ball of the last over, Pandey decided to take on Trent Boult as it was expected of him to score as many runs as possible. He could not time the short ball well as Boult took the pace off the delivery. Despite not timing the ball well and hitting it high on the bat, the ball travelled towards deep midwicket boundary. Santner jumped in the air and got both hands under the ball. He soon realised that he would not be able to hold on the ball.
The left-arm offspineer saw Grandhomme not far from him and decided to throw the ball towards him. Grandhomme was quick to react and took the catch helping his team save a boundary and also get a crucial wicket as Pandey was looking dangerous having scored 17 runs off 10 balls before getting out.
Here’s the video of Santner’s effort on the boundary –
— Cricket Videos (@CricketKaVideos) November 7, 2017
What was that flying Kiwi ?#INDvNZ #Santner pic.twitter.com/gKIzxi5OFK
— VBanerjee (@vicky4861) November 7, 2017
Santner also took an outstanding catch to dismiss Rohit Sharma by diving forward from the square leg position. Santner was criticised for his fielding efforts in the previous matches as they turned out to be expensive in the later stages of the game.
Santner bowled well too, he gave just 16 runs from 2 overs and was able to spun the ball square and create problems for the batsman. Though it was effort at the boundary which got lauded by many in the commentary box and by the crowd.
