The Vidarbha and Punjab Kings wicketkeeper-batter Jitesh Sharma got his maiden India call-up for the second and third T20I against Sri Lanka after Sanju Samson was ruled out of the series due to a knee injury.
He was included in the Indian squad on the back of a brilliant Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2022 season. He scored 224 runs at a strike rate of 175.00 in ten matches in the domestic tournament.
Meanwhile, an old video clip of the cricketer has now went viral on social media after the 29-year-old was named as a replacement for Samson.
The weird incident took place during a domestic game between Uttar Pradesh and Vidarbha in 2013. But it almost went unnoticed by everyone in the field, including the umpires at that time.
In the video, Jitesh can be found going for a pull against an attempted flipper off Piyush Chawla and almost fell on the stumps. A closer look at the video suggests that the bails were dislodged by his foot, leaving the leg-stump bent.
Subsequently, the non-striker, who had called for a single went to the striker’s end and placed the bails on the stumps without anybody noticing and even straightened the stumps.
Jitesh will possibly look back and think that he was lucky that day.
However, his India call-up has nothing to do with luck but only his stellar performance.
Although it is highly unlikely that Jitesh would go on to make his debut for India in the upcoming series, his selection has come on the back of some consistent performances in the domestic circuit.