Kolkata, Feb 24: Probably it was only one person on Thursday (February 23) who was not surprised with Wriddhiman Saha's amazing catch on the first day of the first Test between India and Australia in Pune.
Watch Saha's sensational catch; Ind-Aus series schedule, squads
Wriddhiman captured the catch, diving towards his right like a bird, to dismiss Steve O'Keefe. His dive was being compared to the similarly taken catches in the past by legendary wicketkeeper Rodney Marsh and legendary South African fielder Johnty Rhodes. Appreciations are being showered on the Bengali wicketkeeper from all over the cricket fraternity.
Saha senior was an excellent goalkeeper. He had started Wriddhiman's fitness training when his son was only 10 years old. Prasanta said, "Being a goalkeeper I know very well that how much diving is important for a goalkeeper and as Papali (Wriddhiman's nickname) always wanted to be a goalkeeper in those days, I conducted his fitness training in a nearby ground.
"Even after training for hours in the early morning, Papali never seemed tired. Rather he asked me to continue training. He had made a lot of diving practices that time. Then when he began to play in the sub-junior and junior level cricket in Siliguri district, I had seen several matches where Papali took catches, flying in the air to dive to an extreme level to capture the ball."
Jayanta Bhowmick, the childhood coach of Wriddhiman also had the same opinion. Despite being elated to have watched his student taking awesome catch off Umesh Yadav's bowling, Bhowmick said, "I also have seen Papali taking such type of catches several times when he used to play in the sub-junior and in the junior level cricket. His body was extremely flexible since his childhood thanks to his natural fitness training which included riding on the trees, swimming, cycling and running a lot."
OneIndia News