South Africa vs Sri Lanka: Lakshan Sandakan enters record books with his first delivery in T20Is

With this first-ball wicket, Lakshan Sandakan became the 15th bowler and first Sri Lankan to achieve this feat in T20Is (and third to do this against South Africa).

Lakshan Sandakan became the 1st Sri Lankan to take wicket of the first ball on debut T20I © AFP

Sri Lanka’s chinaman Lakshan Sandakan, who impressed with his superlative bowling in his debut Test against Australia at Pallekele last year, seems to be doing the same on his T20I debut as well. Sandakan becomes 69th player for Sri Lanka in T20Is. Sri Lanka were asked to bowl first against South Africa. Sandakan was brought into the attack, in the 7th over. Before that, he had already taken JJ Smuts’ catch of JJ Smuts in the second over. However, in his first over, he bowled a very wide delivery, which Mangaliso Mosehle nicked. Had it been left alone, it would have been a wide. But Mosehle edged it to wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal and walked back to the pavilion. Full Cricket Scorecard: South Africa vs Sri Lanka 2nd T20I at Johannesburg

With this first-ball wicket, Sandakan became the 15th bowler and first Sri Lankan to achieve this feat in T20Is (and third to do this against South Africa). The previous player to do this was Lockie Ferguson, against Bangladesh earlier this month. Out of those 15 players, Virat Kohli was the only player, whose first ball was wide but still got the wicket.

Bowler	Batsman	Team	Opposition	Venue	Season	Notes
Michael Kasprowicz	Stephen Fleming	Australia	New Zealand	Eden Park	2004-05	had Matthew Sinclair off second ball
Ajit Agarkar	Herschelle Gibbs	India	South Africa	New Wanderers	2006-07
Alfonso Thomas	Imran Nazir	South Africa	Pakistan	New Wanderers	2006-07
Shaun Tait	Jamie How	Australia	New Zealand	WACA	2007-08
Rory Kleinveldt	Junaid Siddique	South Africa	Bangladesh	New Wanderers	2008-09
Pragyan Ojha	Shakib Al Hasan	India	Bangladesh	Trent Bridge	2009
Joe Denly	Graeme Smith	England	South Africa	Centurion	2009-10
Virat Kohli	Kevin Pietersen	India	England	Old Trafford	2011	0th ball
Nadeem Ahmed	Subash Khakurel	Hong Kong	Nepal	Chittagong	2013-14	Same match
Paras Khadka	Irfan Ahmed	Nepal	Hong Kong	Chittagong	2013-14	Same match
Willie Gavera	Niall O’Brien	PNG	Ireland	Belfast	2015	had Kevin O’Brien off third ball
Ajay Lalcheta	Nizakat Khan	Oman	Hong Kong	Abu Dhabi	2015-16
Aamer Yamin	Jason Roy	Pakistan	England	Sharjah	2015-16
Lockie Ferguson	Sabbir Rahman	New Zealand	Bangladesh	Napier	2016-17	had Soumya Sarkar off second ball
Lakshan Sandakan	Mangaliso Mosehle	Sri Lanka	South Africa	New Wanderers	2016-17

After taking the first wicket, Sandakan went on to take three more wickets. His figures of 4 for 23 is the third best by a Sri Lankan on his T20I debut, after Ajantha Mendis’ 4 for 15 in 2008-09 and Kaushalya Weeraratne’s 4 for 19 in 2008-09. Not to forget that Sandakan also took four wickets in first Test innings.

In the previous T20I, Mosehle, who fell for Sandakan, became the first ever batsman to have the strike rate of 600: he had hit a six off the first ball before getting run out.