Jatin Sapru went mute for 2 seconds during iconic 'LONG-OFF' Surya call that lives rent-free in minds of Indian fans

"Long-off… long off… LONG OFFFFFFFF! Suryakumar Yadav! Suryakumar Yadav ne pakda hai apne career ka sabse important catch"

Renowned cricket commentator and broadcaster Jatin Sapru immortalised these lines when he dished out this gem during the final of the T20 World Cup between India and South Africa in Barbados. Final over of the match, 16 runs to get, three wickets remaining. David Miller on strike, Hardik Pandya with the final six balls of the match. The game couldn't have set itself up for a better finish.

Indian cricket has had its iconic on-air moments over the years. An over-the-moon Tony Grieg going bonkers at Sachin Tendulkar's sixes during the Sharjah Desert Storm innings, Ravi Shastri calling Yuvraj Singh's sixes in the 2007 T20 World Cup and MS Dhoni's 2011 World Cup winning six, or Harsha Bhogle's 'Kohli goes down the ground… Kohli goes out of the ground'. Sapru, on that Saturday evening, was at the right place, at the right time, to call a catch that all but sealed India's World Cup win. The call became viral; memes are being shared even today, a month after the triumph.

"Hardik bowled and I remember I was building up. There was a shot of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma… the last six balls potentially of their T20I careers. When the ball flew off the bat, the first two seconds I didn't say anything. Because from that angle, the trajectory wasn't picked. The ball got lost. It's easier to pick it from the side, but not from that angle. You want to pick up the speed at which the ball is coming. So I took a couple of seconds, and with the wind that there was, I felt it was going to be a six," Sapru said in a video shared by Star Sports, marking the one month anniversary of India's T20 World Cup win.

And what happened then was nothing short of a miracle. Stationed at long-off, Suryakumar Yadav sprinted in, plucked the catch out of thin air, and with incredible presence of mind, threw the ball back into play as he was about to cross the boundary. Regaining control, he leapt back in and completed the catch. There were five more balls to go, but that was the match.

Breaking down the three 'LONG-OFF' calls

Sapru dissected the emotions that went behind all the three 'long-off' mentions that came out of his mouth. All three 'long-offs' had a different tone to it, which changed dramatically every mini-second as Surya poised himself. For the last 10 years, India had, time and again, been at the receiving end of it – Martin Guptill's direct hit, Travis Head's catch to dismiss Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah dismissing Fakhar Zaman off a no-ball. This was India's chance to bury all those ghosts with one catch.

"Then I got up and saw from the corner of the eye someone starting to run in a very interesting manner, so that was the first 'long-off'. That long off was for being interested. The second 'long-off' was because he was coming closer. And the third ‘long-off' was because I saw Surya take the catch. And I literally saw him for a fraction of a second before he went in front of the sightscreen. I didn't have a vision beyond that. I had forgotten the screen. I was watching it live," added Sapru.

"You can't prepare for that moment. I don't think I said anything extraordinary. All I said was who was interested and then Suryakumar Yadav was the guy who has pulled off a miracle. We had spent out whole lives watching Kapil Dev's catch of Viv Richards. You just realise and then the context came to me that this has got to be the biggest catch of his career. So great view."