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Abu Dhabi: Coming off an injury-plagued season, Ireland seamer Curtis Campher wasn’t feeling great health-wise. However, that did not matter as Curtis Campher entered into the record books with his incredible bowling during their T20 World Cup game against the Netherlands here Monday.
The Johannesburg-born Campher became only the third bowler to claim four wickets in four balls in T20Is. His feat did not go unrewarded as a superior Ireland beat the Netherlands by seven wickets in their first round Group A game. “To be honest, I didn’t feel the best out there coming back from injury,” Campher said after the match.
Campher missed the ODI series against Zimbabwe in September because of a shoulder injury. That was after Campher was out for most of the summer because of an ankle injury, for which he also underwent a surgery.
Campher was bowling his second over for the day and the Netherlands innings’ 10th when he picked those four wickets. He had conceded 12 runs in his first over.
“I tried to bang the ball and keep hitting the hard length. The first over didn’t go to plan but the skipper had faith in me. In the end it worked out well,” he said.
The pacer’s first wicket of the day was Colin Ackermann. He was declared out caught behind on review, having played an attempted pull off a short ball.
Campher said he was sure the decision would go in his favour. “I knew there was a glove on it. I heard a sound and thought it had to be the glove,” he said. The Irish bowler’s third victim, Scott Edwards too was declared out after DRS was taken. It showed the ball was hitting the leg stump and the batsman was declared leg before. “I thought it (ball) was definitely hitting leg stump and I said to Balb (skipper Andrew Balbirnie) to please go upstairs,” Campher informed.
Campher finished with figures of 4/26 from his quota of four overs. He left his native South Africa in early 2020 to play for the Irish national team, a move that benefitted his adopted country immensely on the second day of the showpiece.
