Lokesh Rahul is known to have one of the safest pair of hands currently in cricket. He proved this in India’s third Test match against England, where he pouched all of seven catches in the match, thus becoming the first non-wicketkeeper to reach the feat in England, the seventh player overall and the third Indian. However, it was his celebration after dismissing Joe Root that took the cake and set twitter on overdrive.
📸 @SonyLIV | @klrahul11 jumps on the ‘Dele Alli challenge’ bandwagon after claiming Joe Root's catch💪 https://t.co/jLV4kcMad0 #ENGvIND #TeamIndia #KLRahul #KLRahulClub #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/bLgBK3P9Vi
— KL Rahul FC (@KLRahul_Club) August 22, 2018
Standing at second slip, Rahul took a well-judged catch off Jasprit Bumrah’s bowling to dismiss a well set Joe Root who was grafting to save the Test for his team. Root’s edge flew quickly to Rahul giving him very little time to react. But our sher was equal to the task and made everything look easy in the end. He immediately took off as soon as he completed the catch to celebrate and capped off his celebration by making a ring with his index finger and thumb, aligning the remaining three fingers and placing this on his face, thus successfully completing the #DeleAlliChallenge.
The challenge has become popular on social media after English football player Dele Alli used it in his celebration, after scoring against Newcastle United in Tottenham Hotspurs’ first match of the current English Premier League season. A number of people have tried to twist their palms around and complete the challenge since then but not many have succeeded. On Tuesday, however, Rahul aced not just on the cricket field but also in the virtual one as the twitter-verse went crazy after his celebration.
Talk of the Town;)#KLRahul does #DeleAlli celebration#ENGvIND #Nottingham #TrentBridgeTest pic.twitter.com/MZ5L6jZja1
— mariam hussain (@28saleema) August 21, 2018
Amazing performance by Indian Team in Slips... KL Rahul with two brilliant catches... King Kohli with the passionate leap for 4th wicket... Seems it might be wrapped up before lunch...😉
— Apurva Tripathi (@aptr1311) August 21, 2018
Btw KL Rahul did the celebration better than Dele Alli...👌🏻😂
kl rahul just did the dele ali challenge to celebrate lmaogtfo
— thewisecrab (@thewisecrab) August 21, 2018
Joe Root is taking a leaf out of Kohli's book. Much like the Indian captain, he's taken to taking guard further out of his crease - his average impact point against pace today is 20cm further forward than usual. #ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/yHsfkIHyha
— The Cricket Prof. (@CricProf) August 21, 2018
King Rahul has thus proved that whatever the challenge, he is equal to it.