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Indian captain Rohit Sharma looked thrilled when Bangladesh’s Jaker Ali dropped KL Rahul in the 2025 Champions Trophy opener. Watch the viral moment.
Snippet from Rohit Sharma’s reaction to KL Rahul’s drop. (Screengrab)
Indian captain Rohit Sharma was one of the happiest among the thousands gathered at the Dubai International Stadium when Bangladesh’s Jaker Ali dropped wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul in the deep for just nine runs in their 2025 Champions Trophy opener on Thursday.
Rohit, who had dropped Jaker in the first innings on all-rounder Axar Patel’s hat-trick ball, pointed at the fielder after the drop and seemed to be enjoying the moment when the cameras panned at him. Videos of the moment have now gone viral on social media. Watch a couple of them below:
Rohit was frustrated with himself when he couldn’t catch a straightforward edge off Jaker’s bat in the ninth over to give Patel his first international and India’s first Champions Trophy hat-trick. He was even seen beating the ground five or six times in anger before apologizing to Patel.
Jaker went on to score 68 (114) to help Bangladesh reach 228 from 35/5 at the time of the drop. Towhid Hridoy scored a century on the other end after also being dropped in his 20s, that time by Hardik Pandya.
“No, that was an easy catch, I should have taken that catch with the standards I have set for myself. But I do know these things are bound to happen. Credit to Hridoy and Jaker, they stitched a nice partnership,” Rohit said, as quoted by Cricbuzz, after the match.
In the second innings, Jaker’s drop off Rahul’s bat also came at a similarly important moment for India. The Men in Blue had lost four wickets for 144 runs with Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer and Patel all failing to convert their starts due to poor shots to get out.
Rahul tried to force the pace, too, trying to power through a flick shot against Taskin Ahmed on the second ball of the 37th over, only to mistime it to Jaker in the deep who got both hands to it but couldn’t hold on. Had India lost another wicket at that stage, it might have put extra pressure on Shubman Gill at the other end.
But Rahul went on to score 41 (47) and Gill notched 101, with the duo remaining unbeaten to see India through.
