Photo credit: BCCI/IPLT20.com

What were you doing when you were a mere 17-year-old? Preparing for your examinations? Getting over a teenage heartbreak? Well, ask a certain Mujeeb Ur Rahman this question, and he would say that he is rubbing shoulders with some of the best in the game, and flummoxing them with his lethal spin bowling.

With a target of just 156 set by Kings XI Punjab on a batting wicket against an explosive Royal Challengers Bangalore batting order, captain Ravichandran Ashwin chose to go all-out with his spin attack. After Axar Patel got Brendon McCullum out for a duck, the onus was on getting the chase-master Virat Kohli out. Well, cometh the hour and cometh the Rah-Man, as the mystery spinner from Afghanistan produced a peach of a delivery dripping with magic to send the RCB captain walking back to the dugout.

Photo credit: BCCI/IPLT20.com

It was the fifth ball of the fifth over, and Mujeeb’s second. Running in with that simple action of his, Mujeeb unfurled a googly from the back of his hand with that extra bit of flight and drift behind it. It pitched outside off stump, and darted back in sharply, to go clean through Kohli’s gates, hitting the top of middle stump - sending the bails in a tizzy, spinning in the air with those bright orange lights.

One of the finest batsmen of spin bowling, and arguably the best batsman of this generation, Kohli had no clue about the variation that Mujeeb had just unleashed. He was caught in the midst of a drive, leaving just enough gap between bat and pad for the ball to creep in.

In just the two matches so far, Mujeeb Ur Rahman has gotten the cricketing fraternity speaking of his talent – may it be fellow cricketers or fans of the sport. With that dismissal of Kohli for 21 (16), the youngster has surely gotten a memory to hold on to for a long time – and dare we say, it was the best delivery of VIVO Indian Premier League 2018 so far!