KL Rahul completes the #DeleAlliChallenge after catching Joe Root at slips; Twitter is on fire
It takes very little time for people all over the world to pick up the latest funda from the world of sports, and even little for Twitter to be set ablaze, provided such instances occur.
As of now, the latest in trending is probably the #DeleAlliChallenge, which has got the entire world sitting up, twisting their palms and fingers over their foreheads to obtain a satisfactory result - which would be comparable to that of what England footballer Dele Alli achieved, in the celebration following his deciding goal against Newcastle United FC, on August 11th - as shown below.
The weird positioning of the fingers over Alli's eye and forehead sparked curiosity, and soon everyone was trying to emulate the celebration. Most of them failed and probably ended up hurting themselves attempting something that looked 100% harmless. For instance:
Take a look at Manchester United stars trying the apparent "sorcery":
Well, all jokes aside, we have now found a man who has finally succeeded in completing the challenge by himself (apart from Dele Alli himself and the writer, that is, me, of course). And the man does not belong to football at all - he is Indian cricket's maverick opener and "slip-fielding expert", KL Rahul.
Rahul is a part of India's slip cordon while fielding second at Trent Bridge, where England is fighting against India's mammoth total of 521 runs in the fourth innings. They are currently at 110/4, and while at 62/2, England captain Joe Root tugged at a Bumrah delivery pitched a tad wide of off-stump, and the ball, in turn, caught his bat's protruding edge and flew straight to Rahul. It did not take much effort for the player to latch on to it, and as the teammates came in to offer a big embrace, Rahul did the unthinkable.
He curled up his hand and rest it on his forehead, in the same exact manner that Dele Alli did a week ago, thus completing the challenge. Television broadcasters picked it up immediately, and so did the viewers, and everyone has been since rooted to Twitter, with reactions flowing in from far and wide. Take a look:
Well, let us now see how Dele Alli will react to that attempt, which by all means was perfect to our eyes.